
IVES 





















DOG HEROES 

OF 

MANY LANDS 

BY 

SARAH NOBLE IVES 

1 1 

ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 
THE CENTURY CO. 
1922 



Copyright, 1922, by 
The Centuby Co. 



* 7 - 7 ^ 

PBIKTUD IK U. 8. A. 


SEP 1 9 (922 

©CI.A683286 

< *v.> l 















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m 



Byron was digging now, with all his 


remaining strength 




■ 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

For the material for some of these tales I am indebted 
to the courtesy of Our Animal Friends,’ * 

* ‘Country Life in America,” and 
“Littell’s Living Age.” 







CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Tige the Goatherd; A Dog of the Sierra Nevadas . 3 

Zip; A Dog of the Northland 27 

Sirrah; A Dog of the Ettrick Hills 54 

Darky; A New Zealand Dog 100 

Byron; A Dog of Scotland 125 

Bum; A Brooklyn Dog 149 

Brakje; A Kafir Dog . 173 

Ask-Him; An Indian Dog 194 

Jerry; A Sea-Dog of the California Coast . . .212 

Tom; A Dog of the Eastern States 235 

Bruce; A Fire-Dog of New York ..... 253 



ILLUSTRATIONS 


Byron was digging now, with all his remaining 

strength Frontispiece 

PACING 

PAGE 

Tige grew in strength if not in grace; never did he 

become a beauty 7 

He held himself aloof and dignified, as becomes 

the fore-goer in the sledge harness . . . 30 

With his eye on every move, and his ear cocked 

for the slightest word 60 

All day long Darky barked and howled his misery 

to the yellow tussocks 120 

As the months went by Byron grew happy and con- 
tented 132 

A sober-minded, tan-colored dog, with that nameless 

something about him that irresistibly attracts 196 

Jerry is thirteen years old now — old, as dogs go; 

but he’s an old sea-dog, and he’s seen life . 216 

He never had a whipping, and he never needed one ; 

the whole family hung on his eyelids . . .238 

“It ’s the fine mascot he ’ll be making,” said Bruce’s 

master to the engine company . . , , ,254 



DOG HEROES 
OF 

MANY LANDS 



DOG HEROES 
OF MANY LANDS 


TIGE THE GOATHERD: A DOG OF 
THE SIERRA NEVADAS 

T HE puppy was yellow, yellow as a tawny 
tiger, while all his little brothers and sis- 
ters were nearly white. Also he was bigger 
than they, and claimed more than his share of 
his mother’s attention. 

Tim Borlan, proprietor of the Pine-Tree 
Inn, laughed as he looked down for the first 
time on the little family. 

“He ’s king, all right, that yellow feller; and 
I guess he ’ll be the one I ’ll pick for my goat- 
dog. Blind as a bat, but he ’s got the nerve to 
shove any of the others out ’n his way. Here, 
you Tige, your mother ’ll be glad to get rid 
of you. I ’ve got another mother waitin’ for 
you. She ’ll bring you up on a different 
plan.” 


3 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

Borlan plucked the small morsel out of the 
squirming huddle of blind puppies, and carried 
him off to the goat corral. In an inclosed 
stall lay a mother-goat, bleating her sorrow at 
having been bereft of her own baby. 

“There you are, Susie; that ’s Tige. Now, 
if you take to him and bring him up right, 
he ’ll be worth, one of these days, a sight 
more ’n your own offspring.” 

Susie did not approve at all of this substi- 
tute for her own kid. She looked daggers at 
it, but when the blind baby proceeded to find 
its dinner as if it were very much at home, her 
brain reeled, and she saw things in a mist. 
It was not canny. Open-mouthed she re- 
garded him as a thing to be dealt with when 
she could gather her wits together. 

When Tige had finished his repast, Susie be- 
gan to put the pieces of the picture-puzzle to- 
gether in her brain, and decided that this was 
a changeling and not to be tolerated. She 
arose, lowered her head at the yellow intruder, 
and would have butted him for his impudence, 
had not Tim lifted him out of harm’s way. 

Thus the goat, Susie, began the rearing of 
4 


A DOG OF THE SIERRA NEVADAS 


her foster-child. At feeding time only was the 
puppy left to her ministrations, for in these 
first days she did not like him at all. Tige 
himself, all unconscious of the change in his 
source of life, fed peacefully and slept by him- 
self between meals, growing in strength if not 
in grace. Never did he become a beauty. It 
was not to be expected with his mongrel ances- 
try. On the morning of the ninth day of his 
existence his eyes popped open, and behold, 
although his mother apparently was a goat, he 
was not in the least surprised. 

Susie by this time had become reconciled to 
the new order of things and actually began to 
grow fond of the puppy. They were a 
strange pair, but now that all was understood 
between them, Tige slept snuggled up to 
Susie and became as her very own. When 
she was let out into the corral he followed at 
her side, and she unwinkingly braved the 
astonishment of the other goats, who had no 
puppies to feed and love. As a fact, Susie 
seemed to take a certain pride in the distinction, 
as one who has been set to rear a princeling. 

Pine-Tree Inn was a roadside affair of 
5 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


very primitive character. Seldom did any 
one come that way save an occasional pros- 
pector or a party of cow-boys. It was a 
shelter simply for the chance wayfarer. 
Travelers were few on this lonely road, and the 
Borlans eked out their small living by keeping 
a herd of goats; for there was coarse grass on 
the ranges and succulent shoots on the burned 
grounds, and in time of stress they could climb 
to heights impossible for cattle. 

It was no easy matter, however, for Tim 
Borlan to keep them together on the range. 
Too poor to keep a herder to tend the flock, 
he depended on a dog for that duty. A dog 
furnished its own clothes and asked no hire. 
But the dog who had herded for Tim was 
drawing to the end of a long and useful life; 
hence Tige’s training. 

Curious it seems, but all the training Tige 
ever got came from the goats : Tim never lifted 
his hand except to transfer him from his box 
to Susie and back again during the early days 
of her rebellion. When she accepted him 
Tim’s duties were over. When Susie fared 
forth once more with the flock Tige gamboled 
6 






















































- ■ ; 







Tige grew in strength if not in grace; never did he 
become a beauty 


A DOG OF THE SIERRA NEVADAS 

at her heels. As he grew, the superior nature 
of the dog showed itself. Before he was 
weaned, instead of following, he began to lead 
the whole herd. When he was a year old 
they called him master; he herded them and 
they obeyed. Where he led they followed. 
Waking he guarded them, sleeping they shel- 
tered him in their midst. At the least stir of 
uneasiness or hint of danger, Tige was up and 
alert, ready to ward off the foe. 

There were foes a-plenty, too. On a still 
night Tige could hear afar off, on the edge 
of the pine woods that bordered the feeding 
grounds, the “ooo-ooo-oow!” of the coyotes. 
Sometimes in the moonlight he would see them 
running along a ridge, or sitting in a melan- 
choly row watching the flock they were too 
cowardly to attack. 

Then Tige would gather his family to- 
gether and growl defiance to all of wolf -kind, 
although any one of them could easily and 
alone have made an end of him. 

Generally speaking Tige just laughed at 
coyotes. But a bear, now — that was some- 
thing to be considered seriously. Tige knew 
7 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


that a bear must be avoided at all costs, and 
if he caught the bear scent in the air, that day 
the goats were kept together in a compact 
mass, and at night were led home to their 
corral. 

Worst of all and most treacherous were the 
mountain lions, but of these, more later. 

When the feed was good Tige usually 
brought his family home at night. That was 
safer, and then, too, Tige could get his own 
meal of good meat and vegetables at the inn. 
But many a night, when feed was scarce on 
the hills, he would forgo his own eating that 
Susie and the rest might nibble and be filled. 
What language they used between them who 
shall say? But certain it was that in the dry 
weather, when the herbage grew scantier and 
the goats leaner, they managed to tell him of 
their wants, and he would go hungry himself 
for their sakes. 

There came one year a dry and rainless 
August. The grass grew yellow, then brown, 
and shriveled down to the very roots. On the 
burned grounds where the scrub had come up 
there was generally something to be found, 
8 


A DOG OF THE SIERRA NEVADAS 

but now nearly everything that the goats had 
not already eaten had wilted and turned dry 
and crackling. When the wind blew even the 
pine-needles fell off in showers, to redden the 
parched earth beneath. 

One hot morning Tige led his hungry flock 
out of the corral and up the trail, now so dry 
that the flock soon disappeared from sight in 
the rolling clouds of dust. On all the feeding 
ranges of the foot-hills there was not a blade 
of grass. They must go farther afield. 
There was food to be found, but one must go 
a long distance and climb high. 

Tige knew of a pasture where the air was 
thin and cool and where the clouds swooped 
down, even in the driest weather, to encour- 
age the thirsty green things. Water there 
was for drinking, too. On one side of the 
range tall pines marched their hosts down 
the mountainside, straight to the blue and 
emerald wonder of one of those magic pools 
that lie in the bosom of the Sierra Nevada 
Mountains, like jewels on a queen; sapphire 
at noon, topaz and ruby at sunset, amethys- 
tine in the fading dusk. Around and above 
9 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


towered the great snow-caps, whose glaciers 
were the sources of life. 

It was a wonderful place for Tige’s family. 
They spread out on the green carpet and nib- 
bled away for dear life. Time here to rest at 
noonday; one need not nibble and hunt 
through the whole day and into the night, as 
they had done on the lower range. Tige 
hunted out Susie from the herd and lay down 
at her side in the shade of the bushes. It was 
a happy world — just blue above, with drifting 
clouds, hazy peaks, and green a-plenty all 
around them. 

When, late in the afternoon, Tige thought 
of the long, weary road home, he thought 
twice. The goats were enjoying life; what 
matter if their master went hungry for a 
night? It was no great hardship for a dog 
reared as Tige had been. 

So the night went by, the stars came out in 
the high places, and the moon silvered the 
pool’s rim. Far away the coyotes howled, 
but hunting was good for them in the forest; 
no fear for the peace of the herd. Tige kept 
watch until the dawn slipped over the eastern 
10 


A DOG OF THE SIERRA NEVADAS 

range, and the goats awoke to the daily busi- 
ness of provender. 

Throughout the day Tige’s stomach called 
to him for help, and when the goats were tak- 
ing their afternoon siesta and there was no 
warning of danger in the air, he bounded away 
over hill and canon, back to Pine-Tree Inn. 

It was near supper-time and there was a 
smell of frying things in the air that made his 
mouth water. At the kitchen door he halted, 
barked, and waited. 

“Hello, Tige! Well, wherever were you 
last night? Wait a minute, now, till this meat 
is done. Can’t serve you first, old fellow. 
There ’s company for supper. But you ’ll 
get yours.” 

Tige waited. The sun was disappearing 
behind the mountains. There would be a twi- 
light long enough for him to get back to the 
flock; the goats must not be left alone in the 
dark hours. There were too many dangers. 

Mary Borlan was serving the meal to the 
inn guests. Why must Tige wait so long, 
and he so hungry, and the goats masterless? 

The goats — yes, he must get back to his 
11 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


duty. Already the chill of the early twilight 
was falling. 

Tige gave a disappointed howl, and was 
gone, back to the high range and his family. 

When Mary Borlan came out a few minutes 
later with a dish of steaming comfort, there 
was no Tige. Across the brown range on the 
lower hills she could see a yellow dog loping 
away, but he did not even look back when she 
shouted to him. 

Not till another nightfall did he come again. 
But you may be sure that this time Mrs. Bor- 
lan was ready and waiting with a dinner 
smoking on the stove hearth fit for the king 
of dogs. 

He gobbled it; no other word will explain 
what a dog, after three days’ fasting, will do 
to a plate of bones and liver: and then he was 
off again. The next night he drove the herd 
home, that Tim might know they were safe 
and well fed. 

One afternoon Pine-Tree Inn had a visita- 
tion which stirred the Borlan household to 
great activity. Where the dusty highway 
came curling down out of the forest and 
12 


A DOG OF THE SIERRA NEVADAS 


across the goat range, there crawled into sight 
a “prairie schooner.” Two tired horses 
dragged it along, and a patient cow brought 
up the rear. As they turned in at the yard, 
Tim saw on the driving seat two men. 
Swinging at the rear of the great hood were 
two pairs of bare feet, the property of a 
woman holding a crying baby in her arms and 
of a small girl. A boy, just enough bigger 
than the girl to be called the elder, trudged 
along with a big Newfoundland dog at the 
heels of the patient cow. 

Men came to Pine-Tree Inn, but “prairie 
schooners” containing women and children 
seldom drifted so far from the beaten track. 
Mary Borlan lost no time in giving the broad- 
est of welcomes to the weary woman. She 
hushed the thin little baby to sleep in her own 
motherly arms, made a cup of “afternoon tea” 
for the mother, and then proceeded to the 
manufacture of such a dinner as made Pine- 
Tree Inn sit up and rub its eyes. 

There were two out of Mary’s precious 
flock of chickens sacrificed on the altar of the 
horse-block, stuffed and seasoned with sage 
13 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


and summer savory, and roasted to a brown 
and dripping richness; there were corn and 
Lima beans from the little garden, and last 
of all, a pie made from a can of cherries that 
had been hoarded for three years. Mrs. Bor- 
land baking-powder biscuit were light as 
dreams, and there was, besides, goat’s milk for 
the children (Susie’s best) and coffee for the 
grown-ups made with an egg and clear as 
clearest amber. 

While all this was doing in the house, things 
were happening in the corral. Tige had 
brought his family home for the night, and 
although he saw the big Newfoundland and 
growled at him, he was far too busy rounding 
up the goats to pay much attention. Dogs 
came and went and were as nothing to him. 
When he had finished his business for the 
night, he turned and saw the boy. Tige had 
never seen a child before. When the little 
girl slipped out to find her brother, he was 
more than astonished. He walked over and 
sniffed these two beings from another world; 
and he found that they were humans and a 
very nice kind of humans. 

14 


A DOG OF THE SIERRA NEVADAS 

They patted him and pulled his ears, and 
before he knew it he was in the middle of his 
first game of romps, the happiest and silliest 
dog in creation. 

The men threw down some hay for the cow 
and horses, and Tige’s goats, seeing this, de- 
cided that Pine-Tree provender was free for 
all. Susie and one or two of the hardy ones 
walked over and began nibbling, the others 
following. 

Now the Newfoundland dog thought he 
had something to say about this. That hay 
had been given to his cow and his horses. 
Wherefore he barked at the goats, and they 
edged cautiously away, mystified by a dog 
who could be so unfriendly. 

In the middle of his grand play with the 
children, Tige heard the commotion at the 
other end of the corral. He stopped sud- 
denly, took in the situation at a glance, and 
immediately stalked the Newfoundland, head 
lowered, tail straight, and legs stiffened. The 
big dog paid no attention until Tige was quite 
upon him. Then there was a growl, a rush, 
and the two dogs met in a bow-on encounter. 

15 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


It did not last long. The Newfoundland was 
the bigger dog and the stronger. He gave 
Tige a shaking up and tossed him aside. The 
horses and the patient cow went on munch- 
ing and the goats huddled themselves on the 
opposite side of the corral. 

Tige rose from the battle-field, shook him- 
self, and went in again, tooth and nail. 

Nobody lifted a hand to help him. Tim 
Bor lan was helping Mary in the house and 
did not see. The new-comers rather enjoyed 
seeing their dog whip another. And whipped 
Tige was for the second time. Blood was 
running down his leg, but there was blood, 
too, upon the Newfoundland’s nose, where 
Tige had caught and held him for an in- 
stant. 

The battle was to the strong ; no doubt of it. 
But for all that, plucky Tige, after breathing 
a few times, tackled his adversary again. He 
was fighting for his principles. 

Another struggle, a desperate one; and for 
the third time Tige was tossed contemptu- 
ously aside. The Newfoundland was king in 
that corral; his corral — Tige’s! 

16 


A DOG OF THE SIERRA NEVADAS 

No use to give battle again. “Crawl away 
and own yourself beaten, yellow mongrel that 
you are!” said his bruised body. But his 
heart met the cowardly instinct and whis- 
pered: “Guard your flock while your breath 
lasts within you.” 

Tige rose to his four legs and looked at his 
enemy, who bristled beside the munching cow 
and horses. Then he looked back at his own 
family, his life-long friends, his Susie. He 
studied the situation carefully. 

A goat started once more for the hay. 
Tige could not fight and conquer for them, 
but he could use that discretion which is the 
better part of valor. 

Deliberately he headed the goat away from 
the hay. Then he turned, and with all the 
dignity of a prince whose fortress has fallen, 
he made a strategic retreat, herding his faith- 
ful followers away from the victors. 

No more play with little boys and girls, no 
more sharing of his worldly goods with stran- 
gers. Up the road they went and out of 
sight. 

Next morning Tim was up at cock-crow to 

17 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


look for his missing flock. Safe and sound 
he found them on a knoll, where Tige had 
herded them all night. Before he could reach 
them the dog was up and away, the goats fol- 
lowing. In a few minutes they had all dis- 
appeared in the mist that hung over the feed- 
ing ground. 

For five years Tige had guarded his be- 
loved flock, and they loved him, from Susie 
to the latest kid. They confided their lives to 
him unquestioningly. No coyote ever dared 
to cross their feeding range. The bears knew 
Tige by reputation, as reputations go with 
wild things, and in his neighborhood they 
busied themselves hunting berries. He had 
heard afar off the cry of the mountain lion, 
but they, too, are cowardly, and quail before 
a courageous eye. Thus Tige kept his flock 
in safety more by what he would than by what 
he could have done. 

It was a dry season, and either Tige had 
taken the herd, or they had taken him, to the 
upper feeding range. 

Even up here the air was hot and heavy. 
Tige’s tongue lolled, and it was easier to go 
18 


A DOG OF THE SIERRA NEVADAS 

hungry than to take that long journey back 
to Pine-Tree Inn. Moreover, he had heard 
it again, that weird cry from the edge of the 
tall pines, and he knew that the great cat was 
not far off, and he must not leave his family 
unprotected even for an hour. 

Closely he herded them all day, and at night 
he watched, supperless ; the next day the 
same. 

In the afternoon he tried to coax the goats 
home to the corral, but this summer even the 
upper range was dry, and the goats persisted 
in nibbling, even far into the night, while 
Tige, poor Tige, although he felt an aching 
goneness in his “turn,” stayed with them. 

That night the cry was nearer, and, hungry 
as he was and weary, he spent the whole night 
wide-eyed and alert. Three times he heard it, 
and he strained his eyes into the darkness, but 
saw nothing. Once there came to him on the 
night air a scent that made his nostrils quiver 
and the hair rise along his spine. Death was 
stalking in there among the pines. 

At sunrise, the immediate danger over, 
Tige dropped into a long sleep of exhaustion, 
19 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


while the flock grazed quietly around him. 
Waking he lapped water from the blue pool 
and took heart from its coolness to herd the 
goats through another long day. It was 
three days since he had tasted food. As 
the sun dropped, red and hot, toward the sky- 
line of hills, he tried once more to coax the 
herd home to the corral and safety. 

And now the goats, in their eagerness for 
feed, not only disobeyed him, but for the first 
time in their lives they rebelled in open mu- 
tiny. Go back to the corral they would not; 
even the upper range had been grazed bare. 
They would show him that they knew more 
about provender for goats than any dog pos- 
sibly could. 

Tige patiently dragged his starving body 
around in an attempt to turn them, when sud- 
denly they broke and went scampering in all 
directions. Up on the high ledges were 
patches of delicious grass; let Tige stop them 
if he could! Even Susie obeyed the voice of 
the wild and raced up the mountain as only a 
goat can, here, where the rocks were steep and 
dangerous, there by the side of a snow-fed 
20 


A DOG OF THE SIERRA NEVADAS 

tumbling stream; now across the open, now 
into the piny depths, where danger trailed 
upon their hoof-tracks. 

Disheartened and distracted, Tige set to 
work to round them up once more. No more 
hope of a return to Pine-Tree that night. 
One by one he drove them from their paths of 
peril. Now he dislodged an old whiskered 
billy from a beetling crag, now he routed a 
yearling from a ravine, now he drove a jenny- 
goat and her half-grown kid from a rich bed 
of feed by a glacier stream. 

The sunset light disappeared, the dusk 
faded into night, and under the stars Tige 
still worked on, with the far-away cry of the 
coyotes in his ears. The hours of the night 
rolled by, and wearily the half-famished leader 
climbed height after height, sending his unwil- 
ling quarries down to join the slowly assem- 
bling herd on their old stamping-ground. 
Midnight passed, and a thin old moon came 
up over a snow-peak and helped him with her 
light. 

Toward two of the clock at the inn he dis- 
covered his own Susie on the far side of the 
21 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


pool. She was heading straight for the pine 
forest. Out of the depths of it, as he toiled 
patiently around to intercept her, so near that 
the old, dreaded scent came to him, sounded 
the fearsome cry of the mountain lion. 

O wilful Susie! Bewildered Susie! She 
ran hither and thither, Tige dragging his tired 
body after her. 

Now he was between her and danger. 
Now he had driven her back to the open, and 
she was safe and sound on the range once 
more, headed for the confused stragglers that 
Tige had already gathered together. Now 
Tige was at the edge of the pool, on a dash 
around it, to continue his task. 

Again that scent, strong and near ! It drew 
his eyes up, to meet, on a branch of a towering 
pine, two other eyes glaring down like coals 
of fire — the mountain lion at last! 

The great cat, with arched back and quiver- 
ing tail, poised — and leaped, straight at Tige. 

But that one glance in time had saved him. 
Quick as thought he swerved, just escaping 
the deadly claws that would have made rib- 
22 


A DOG OF THE SIERRA NEVADAS 

bons of him in another instant. Like light- 
ning he turned upon his enemy before it could 
recover and spring again. 

Now, no dog may battle single-handed with 
a mountain lion and live. Tige knew it. He 
knew that with a flash of hesitation or a sec- 
ond’s losing of his nerve the great beast would 
overpower him. 

He did not bark defiance. He did not even 
growl a challenge. There was just one 
chance, and he must take it : that his own cour- 
age might outweigh the brute’s ferocity. He 
sat back on his haunches and waved his paws 
in the air as if to show that he, too, had claws. 
He whined his defiance with a moaning sound 
that carried a threat, and never let his eyes 
swerve for an instant from the two fiery balls 
in front of him. 

The cat crouched as if to spring again, met 
the unwavering eye of the brave dog, and 
stopped with a vicious snarl. Face to face 
with the fine courage of Tige, who was trained 
to guard his flock, the beast was morally no 
match for him. 


23 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


And so, through the tense minutes, quarter- 
hours, and hours, the dog looked down the red 
menace of those treacherous eyes. 

If he had not been three days fasting it 
would have been easier, but hard though it 
was, he must do it. If he should be killed, 
what miracle could save his family? If he 
could hold the cat there till sunrise it might 
slink away, afraid to do the deed that it might 
attempt in the darkness. 

The narrow moon floated silently and high 
over the range. Then the stars grew paler, 
and over the eastern peaks came the first 
promise of the blessed daylight. Down in the 
valley Tige could hear, faint and far away, 
the crowing of the cocks at Pine-Tree Inn. 
Chills and shivers of pain ran through his be- 
numbed haunches; the agony became almost 
unendurable. 

Rosy streaks of comfort began to flash up 
the sky. Down in the pool below the ledge 
were reflected the images of dog and crouch- 
ing cat. Little moans of pain as well as defi- 
ance came from Tige’s set jaws. The end 
was near. Either he would hold out until the 
24 






He held himself aloof and dignified, as becomes the fore-goer 
in the sledge harness 


A DOG OF THE SIERRA NEVADAS 


sunrise, or succumb to the growing agony of 
his strained body and fall a victim to the cruel 
teeth and claws. 

Slowly the great cat began to back away, 
with an occasional snarl of disappointment. 
What if the dog should win after all? 

Crack! A rifle-shot sounded crisp and 
clear across the pool. It echoed against the 
pine-clad sides of the rocks above. All 
around the breathless hills answered with a 
note of victory. 

Where the mountain lion had crouched 
there was a whirling, coughing, clawing mass 
of fur. Now, with a final impulse to destroy, 
it hurled itself toward Tige, missed, and 
rolled, crashing from the ledge into the pool 
below. 

Then a shout — Tim Borlan’s voice: “Hi, 
Tige !” A sound of running feet. Tige 
dropped to all fours stiffly and wearily. 

“Just in time, wasn’t I, old boy? We’ll 
fish that cat out of the pool and save his skin. 
By gum! he is a bouncer. Where did you get 
the nerve to face him off? No mistake about 
your courage!” 


25 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


Tige looked up in dumb thankfulness, and 
then lay down flat until his strength began to 
come back. Then he once more remembered 
his interrupted task. He rose; looked across 
the pool. About half the goats were on the 
range, the rest were still to be herded in. 

Tim Borlan can never be thankful enough 
that after midnight he had awakened with a 
feeling of strong uneasiness. Tige had been 
out three nights supperless. 

With the moon to guide him he had stolen 
out without waking Mary, had taken his rifle 
and a pail of food for Tige, and had made his 
way to the upper feeding range, just in time 
to see across the pool the closing act of a 
drama which in a few moments might have be- 
come a tragedy. 

Tige breakfasted greedily and rested a bit, 
before he and Tim rounded up the last of the 
straying goats, safe on the feeding ground. 
Then the man went back to his own belated 
breakfast. 

That evening a limping, footsore yellow 
dog came down the ranges, leading his un- 
harmed family into the corral, safe for the 
night. 


26 


ZIP : A DOG OF THE 
NORTHLAND 


I N the white reaches of the great Northeast 
Territory of the British possessions stands 
East Main Fort, a solitary building of logs, 
facing St. James Bay. Year in and year out, 
five or six men are exiled here in the service 
of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the life 
is not a merry one. 

Nothing breaks the stillness save the song 
of the wind under the stout eaves of the 
fort and the grinding of the ice in the shallow 
bay. When the wind is abroad of an autumn 
night the dull grumble of the ice-pack be- 
comes a mingling of a scream and a roar, as 
the great cakes rip each other’s sides, crack 
in pieces, and pile themselves upon each other. 
Later the Arctic reaches down its grim fingers 
and weaves the bergs into a web of solid ice, 
as immovable as the snow barrens lying along- 
side for hundreds of miles toward the twilight 
of the polar zone. Ice and snow, ice and 
27 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


snow; nothing else to see till summer breaks 
through for her brief reign and spreads her 
mantle of coarse grass, hardy flowers and 
mosses over the barrens and sets the ice-cakes 
to tossing once more in the troubled waters. 

Beyond the trapping of Arctic animals 
nothing ever happens save the occasional mails 
and the coming of the yearly supply ship. In 
the long days the little steamer anchors off 
the mouth of East Main River, and then comes 
the great bustle of the year. The lonely men 
awaken from their surly humors and revel in 
the greeting with the sailors, the business of 
canoeing or sledging the supplies into camp, 
and, best of all, in the messages and packages 
from loved ones in the happy Southland. 

Then one hears laughter, and the men play 
and joke with each other like rough boys. 
Then there are hearty farewells as the little 
ship steams away to make other men glad, and 
as she dips out of sight the men return for an- 
other year to their solitude. 

From time to time other mails arrive at the 
lonely camp, and for the Canadian members 
of the little group these have their special joys. 

28 


A DOG OF THE NORTHLAND 

The arrival of one of these precious bags is a 
wonderful break in the monotony. Some- 
times these messages from the outer world 
come through Hudson Straits, sometimes by 
dog-train from Lake Superior. Sometimes 
they come through the great Ottawa forests 
up from Montreal, and sometimes there are 
long months of snowy silence when no word of 
life outside reaches the lonely little fort. 
Then the long nights seem never-ending, and 
the winter sun, hanging pale above the horizon, 
cheers them but for a little while. No won- 
der, then, if a month seems like a year ; no won- 
der that the men grow surly and morose; no 
wonder that, in the face of the sheer blank wall 
of white sameness, one of the number will 
suddenly go mad. We who live in the world 
of realities cannot conceive of the horror that 
sometimes settles down upon the soul of a 
man in the grip of the icy northern silences. 
Then he sees visions and dreams dreams and 
fancies insults. It takes courage and grit 
and endurance to stay for four or five years 
in the jumping-off places of the round earth 
and come out whole and sane. 

29 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


There is one item that goes to make life 
possible; a most important item, too. That 
is the snarling, yelping pack of dogs; the 
“huskies” of the Arctic regions. They are 
usually ill-natured, surly beasts, showing 
little affection for each other and none for 
the men, trained, as they are, to obey at the 
end of a whip-lash. Yet they are courage- 
ous, brave, sturdy chaps. With thick, woolly 
coats to protect them from the nipping 
frosts, they can endure and live where men 
fall and perish from cold and exhaustion. 
Indeed the lives of men would be worth little 
without these four-footed helpers. 

At East Main Fort in the year 189- there 
were four men stationed. Attached to the 
camp was a train of eight or ten sledge dogs; 
all but one of them were of the pure northern 
breed and closely akin to the fierce wolves 
that haunt the Canadian forests and barrens. 
But Zip — Zip was different. Zip boasted a 
Scotch collie mother, and to her blood in his 
veins he owed his high moral sense and his 
more tractable nature. He did not snarl 
and fight with the pack. He held himself 
80 


A DOG OF THE NORTHLAND 


aloof and dignified, as became the foregoer 
in the sledge harness. On the trail he pre- 
served discipline among his fellows. They 
knew he was master and obeyed him, for he 
had fought it out at the start with the whole 
pack, one by one. Mutiny on the trail meant 
certain punishment from Zip, and the dogs 
behaved accordingly. So they worked to- 
gether in a sort of savage harmony, bowing 
to the greater intelligence of the partly civil- 
ized Zip. 

While the whip-lash of the driver, who ran 
on snow-shoes at the side of the train, fell 
often on the unruly, pure-bred huskies, it sel- 
dom troubled Zip, who was nearest it, unless 
the driver was a stranger; and because of his 
human qualities, there grew up a fondness 
between Zip and Francois Delard, a de- 
scendant of the old French stock of Evangel- 
ine's Acadia. 

The other men at the fort were Brainard, 
Carson, and Boyle; Britons all; brave, fear- 
less, steady, and sturdy. But they were not 
so keen at the trapping nor so successful at 
handling the dogs as Francis. Perhaps it 
31 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


was because Zip helped him more willingly 
for the sake of the occasional caress that he 
had learned to look for. At any rate, when 
an expedition was undertaken which re- 
quired swiftness and endurance, Francois 
was generally chosen to head it. So it came 
about that he and Zip were the heroes of this 
story. 

Spring had come in and the sun rose ear- 
lier and lingered longer with each succeeding 
day, with long, strange twilights that almost 
met and conquered the darkness of midnight. 
Eight months of the year had gone by with- 
out a sign or greeting from warmer lands, 
when across the lonesome reaches of the still 
frozen St. James Bay Brainard saw a black 
point. As it drew nearer it resolved itself 
into a row of black points, and later into a 
sledge team and two men. 

The camp woke up with a bang. Extra 
logs were heaped on the fire, and by the time 
the half-frozen men arrived at the stockade 
things were ready for a great welcome. The 
men shouted to one another and to the new- 
comers; the dogs of the sledge barked a fierce 
32 


A DOG OF THE NORTHLAND 

challenge to the huskies of the fort pack; the 
kettle and the coffee-pot hissed and bubbled, 
and the fire roared up the chimney with 
mighty sighs of welcome to those who were 
bringing life and wholesome thought to the 
lonely trappers. 

It was, “Hello, Brainard, what ’ s the news?” 

“None here. What you got?” 

“Mail.” 

“Whoop! Give us the bag! Hi, fellers! 
Mail! Mail!” 

“Hurrah! Whoop! Help yourselves to 
coffee and bacon while we tend to this. You, 
Carson, Boyle — hands off! I *m openin’ her 
Majesty’s budget.” 

Brainard ’s trembling fingers unlocked the 
bag, and dry sobs of eagerness came from the 
other three men as they clutched their pre- 
cious packets. 

Brainard’s two children had written; 
Boyle’s old mother had penned a long letter 
of yearning love; Carson’s wife begged him 
to give up the Hudson’s Bay trade, and come 
back to her, no matter if they starved. And 
Francois Delard — oh, yes, there was a let- 
33 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


ter — two — three — four — all in the same 
cramped handwriting, from the little black- 
eyed girl who was waiting for him in Nova 
Scotia. 

And that was not all: there were packages 
of comforts; mittens, socks, knitted by loving 
hands; tobacco, tea, coffee, maple-sugar; and, 
best of all, no bad news for anybody. It was 
a grand mail-bag. 

One of the new-comers paused as he poured 
his second cup of coffee: 

“There ’s another bag.” 

“Hey, you son-of-a-gun ! Fetch her in. 
Hustle, man!” 

“Go easy now. No need for you to be 
anxious. ‘T ain’t for you at all. It’s for 
Fort Stewart; and the joke is on you, for or- 
ders is for you to tote it. We got to push on 
to Fort George with another. And then,” 
the speaker added, “it ’s home and Peggy for 
me, and no more life in the Arctics.” 

“And we ’ve got two more years of this 
cold hell afore our time ’s up. Well, Fort 
Stewart ’s our next-door neighbor. They ’ll 
be as glad as ourselves to get the bag,” said 
34 


A DOG OF THE NORTHLAND 

Brainard. “How about it, Delard? You 
feel like taking a little hundred-mile prom- 
enade to jolly up the fellows off toward the 
rising sun?” 

“Moi? Oui. Ah ’ll tote ’em!” In the 
joy of his four letters from Marie, Francis 
would gladly have extended happiness over 
the four corners of the earth. There might be 
something in that bag for Bernard from his 
Jeannette. 

“Wan honder mile ’s not’ings. Ah make 
’em in t’ree — fo’ day. Ah taka Zip, yes?” 

“And Napoleon,” said Carson; “he’s the 
next best husky.” 

“Also ah taka Whiskee an’ Brandee; they 
good fellas, too. Four ees enough, hein?” 

“You couldn’t have a better day to start; 
cloudy, not enough snow falling to hurt any- 
thing, not so cold that your fingers will freeze 
to the harness buckles. Will you do it alone, 
or take Boyle?” 

“Eet is not necessaire for send two. Zat 
trail, he ees easy.” 

The sledge was packed with Francois’s 
camping outfit and food, with frozen fish for 
35 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


the dogs, and the bag of paper jewels for the 
men at Fort Stewart. Blankets and robes 
were added, and everything was lashed fast to 
the sledge. Zip danced, barking madly, to his 
station; the other three dogs fell into their 
places in the harness, all eager to be off and 
away. 

Then Francois appeared, clad in furs and 
woolens, snug and trig for the journey, with 
his snow-shoes firmly strapped and his long 
whip in hand. 

“Mar-r-r-che!” he cried, and with a swing 
and a jingle the train started over the inland 
trail that led to Fort Stewart. Snowy, track- 
less waste that it was, there was no hesitation 
as to the right direction. Every dog and man 
knew the trails from camp to camp as instinc- 
tively as the birds of the air. Francis picked 
up the landmarks without a pause anywhere 
for consideration, and if he had not known, 
Zip had taken the trail many a time and needed 
no guiding. 

Lightly Francois swung alongside the dogs, 
his heart keeping merry time as it beat 
beneath four letters from Marie. Two years 
36 


A DOG OF THE NORTHLAND 


more, and he would go back to Nova Scotia, 
and there would be a wedding and a little 
house, furnished with his savings; not too far 
from the lumber camps. Then no more trap- 
ping on the bleak barrens of the North, but a 
wife and fireside, and babies to toss and hum 
to sleep with his merry French songs. From 
very joy Francois sang now: 

*‘11 y avait une bergere, 

Et ron-ron-ron, petit pat-a-pon. 

11 y avait une bergere, 

Qui gardait ses moutons, ron-ron, 

Qui gardait ses moutons. 

“La bergere fait fromage, 

Et ron-ron-ron, petit pat-a-pon. 

La bergere . . . ” 

The merry madness of the tune ran with the 
creak of the sledge-runners, the jingle of the 
harness, the crack of the whip, and the glad 
beatings of the heart of Francis. 

Et ron-ron-ron, petit pat-a-pon. 

k Up and on over the echoless wastes, keep- 
ing as much as possible to the northern land 
slopes; for already the sun was making soft 
patches in the snow on the southern slants, 
37 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


where the dogs might flounder, and snow-shoe 
and sledge break through. Following no 
beaten track and needing none, onward they 
went to Fort Stewart. The snow fell so 
quietly and gently that it was a pleasure 
rather than a hindrance. The soft gray light 
of the cloudy day was a blessing to eyes tired 
of the white monotony; the dogs leaped to 
their task, glad of the chance to run, after the 
confinement of the stockade. 

At noon they halted, and Francois made tea 
on his Eskimo stone lamp. Only a short rest 
now, for they were fresh, and they must make 
the most of their good traveling weather. 
Then on, until weariness told them it was time 
to make camp. Francois dug a deep hole in 
the snow, and warmed his solitary supper with 
more tea, while the dogs barked and snarled 
over their ration of frozen fish. A light wind 
was rising, but the shelter of the snow walls 
kept them comfortable, as comfort goes 
when one sleeps in the open of an Arctic night. 

Through the short darkness and the long 
pale twilight Francois slept at the bottom of 
his hole, with a blanket of dogs above his robes ; 
38 


A DOG OF THE NORTHLAND 


for no sooner had he settled himself than all 
four of the shaggy fellows heaped themselves 
on top, and he lay warm and cozy until morn- 
ing. 

Breakfast all around, and another day of 
travel through a colder air; for the wind was 
blowing now, bitter and biting. The snow 
had ceased falling, and as they made camp for 
the second night the sun broke through the 
clouds and shone on them for a few minutes. 
They were halfway on their journey and far 
more weary than on the night before. Snug- 
gled together again, they knew nothing of the 
march of the heavens above them, saw nothing 
of the stars that tripped out to do homage to 
the King Pole Star on his throne of wavering, 
shifting light, nothing of the clouds, as they 
slipped away and vanished. 

When Francois finally stirred his stiffened 
limbs and shook off the heap of dogs and blan- 
kets, he was greeted by a blaze of sunshine; 
not the sunshine that cheers and warms, but 
that frigid variety that mocks one with its 
brightness. The sky was a pale, unbroken 
blue; not a fleck of cloud anywhere. Fran- 
89 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


9ois hunted for his smoked glasses, for even 
the Eskimo wears his spectacles of horn and 
he must shelter his eyes from the myriad 
points of fresh-fallen snow-crystals that glit- 
tered like crusted gold between him and the 
low-hanging sun, toward which he must start 
on his journey. Everywhere he looked in 
vain for the precious glasses. He had for- 
gotten to bring them! There was a long day 
before him of dazzling light, and already there 
were pains darting through his eyes. 

Francis pulled his cap low on his forehead 
and started, with a great fear welling up in his 
breast; the fear of snow-blindness, the curse 
of the lands of many snows. Once before that 
spring his eyes had been weakened by expos- 
ure, and he had seen men struck blind ; a blind- 
ness from which they did not recover for days 
and weeks. 

“Ah mus’ getta out of dees, queek. Hi, 
you Zip, Napoleon, Whiskee, Brandee, we 
gotta get on ver’ queek.” 

A hurried breakfast; then “Mar-r-che!” and 
they were away. Francois did not sing now, 
but he made sure that Marie’s letters were safe 
40 


A DOG OF THE NORTHLAND 

in his breast-pocket. The round sun glared 
pitilessly; thank the kind Virgin that there 
was no wind to make matters worse. From 
under his cap he squinted across the snow- 
reaches for the landmarks by which to guide 
his dogs. Bravely they went on; fifty miles 
yet to cover. The pain in his eyes grew more 
intense with every moment, and he stumbled 
along without opening them as long as he 
dared. But the direction must be kept, for 
the dogs would follow his lead to whatever 
point he might turn them. 

One more glimpse he must take. His sense 
of the direction of the sun was dulled by the 
splitting pain. A quick glance out along the 
trail, and then the disaster was upon him. A 
flood of scarlet light seemed to surge through 
and through his whole being, and the nerves of 
his eyeballs quivered to the shock ; then a roar 
like an ocean surf in his ears, balls of fire that 
shot hither and thither; then again the floods 
of scarlet light, as if his whole brain had been 
one great blaze. 

That terrible glare ! It seemed as if all the 
light of the sun were eating through his cap 
41 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

and into his tortured eyes. With a groan he 
threw himself on his face in the snow, trying 
to find the darkness that would not come to 
him. “Au secours! Sainte Vierge , Marie!” 
he cried, as the pain grew more and more in- 
tense, and he dug down into the snow with his 
mittened fingers, thankful for the small relief 
that the cold gave to the fiery horrors he was 
enduring. “Au secours , Marie!” 

The erack of his whip no longer sounded, 
but the dogs traveled on unmindful until Zip 
observed that all was not as usual. Some- 
thing was wrong; quite wrong. The sound of 
Francis’ snow r -shoes no longer creaked at his 
side. Zip halted the procession and looked 
around. There was a dark spot on the snow 
back in the tracks they had just made. That 
piust be his master. There was no voice to 
guide the dogs forward or back. What to do? 

But Napoleon and Brandy and Whisky 
knew what to do. Their morning rations had 
been too small altogether. There was no re- 
straining whip, and there lay the sledge, and 
the frozen fish was to be got at by digging and 
scratching off the straps and coverings. The 
42 


A DOG OF THE NORTHLAND 

three huskies threw themselves on the sledge 
and began the attack. 

Through the roar of his bursting brain 
Francois heard the snarling and fighting of 
the pack as they smelled the fish. Now they 
were tearing at the inner covering, and now 
they were yelping and snapping as they 
reached the coveted provender. 

This could not go on. If the dogs ate all 
of the fish they would next get at Francois’s 
own food, and that would mean death for them 
all. The man struggled to his feet, and 
groped his way in the direction of the sounds. 
With his whip he laid about him, until Na- 
poleon slunk back to his place behind Zip, 
Whisky and Brandy following, grumbling 
their disappointment. 

What was to be done? What could be 
done without eyes to see? He could not drive 
the dogs straight ; he could not stay there and 
do nothing. Seme kind of a camp must be 
made. Francois stooped and loosened his 
snow-shoes; with one of them he started dig- 
ging in the snow. Tie worked doggedly, with 
closed eyes, throwing out the snow with great 
43 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


scoops, thanking heaven it was not hard- 
packed, and also that the exertion put new 
warmth in his benumbed arteries. There was 
no stopping to rest. In an hour he had dug 
a hole seven feet deep and five feet across the 
top. Banking this on the outside it made a 
much warmer place to stop; and he was at 
least protected from the bleak and awful cold 
of the level surface; protected, too, from the 
rays of the low sun, every glimpse of which 
meant agony to his tortured eyes. 

Now he cut the dogs loose, and by laying 
the sledge bottom up across the top of the hole 
he accomplished two things; he made the 
packs lashed to it safe from the hungry dogs, 
and secured for himself deeper shadows. Into 
the hole he threw his blankets and robes and 
stumbled in after them. 

Always the floods of burning light seared 
his eyeballs. Even with his face plunged 
deep in a blanket there was no relief. 

"Marie! Sainte Mere !” he groaned. Then 
his hand went to his breast, feeling for the four 
letters from that other, earthly Marie. Oh, 
44 


A DOG OF THE NORTHLAND 


he must live until some one found him; he 
must live ! His mittened fingers closed 
tightly around the envelopes, and there was 
comfort in the feel of them. In spite of the 
pain he suffered he fell gradually into a doze, 
and then into a deep sleep. 

Something stirring near by wakened him; a 
dog was licking his hand. It was Zip. He 
alone of all the dogs at the fort ever caressed 
or showed love for a master. The collie blood 
in Zip was stirring. Something was wrong 
with Francis. When one is on a journey one 
does not lie so long with one’s eyes to the 
ground. Zip whined a little; and shaking 
off his stupor, Francis rose, felt about him 
for the stone lamp, melted a pint of snow, and 
made some weak tea. He ate some pemmi- 
can; and the other dogs, smelling the food, 
began quarreling and growling, while Francois 
unlashed from the sledge a package of frozen 
fish and fed them. With his eyes closed and 
the hungry brutes snarling about him, almost 
he felt afraid. Why might they not attack 
him when the fish should fail? But there they 

m 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


were ; and after all, there was comfort even in 
their companionship, and they kept him from 
freezing. 

It came on to snow. The crystals fell on 
Francis’s face through the spaces at the sides 
of the sledge above him. Shifting the sledge 
to the windward, he huddled himself back 
under it. With the dogs packed tight around 
and over him, together they shivered through 
the Arctic storm. 

Unless his eyesight should come back to him 
soon, he must surely freeze to death. To try 
to travel, not seeing where, would be the 
height of madness. God knows where they 
might fall at last, to die in the stern clutches 
of hunger and cold. There was nothing to 
do but wait. His feet began to grow numb, 
torpor had spread over his whole body, and he 
had no energy to rub them. 

How another day and night passed he never 
knew. He dreamed strange dreams and saw 
things that never existed. The scarlet flame 
in his eyes spun itself into strands of wonder- 
ful and evanescent colors. He was aware of 
something leaping past him; and was it a 
40 


A DOG OF THE NORTHLAND 


shower of stars that fell about him, or was it 
only snow? Maybe one of the dogs had left 
him. But it did not come back; and he could 
not see the dark form as it slipped away si- 
lently, and was swallowed up in the night. 
No, it must have been a dream. For now 
ghostly figures came and went in and out of 
the hole in the snow; moving shapes, noise- 
less and mysterious. Now he was moving 
himself, traveling fast and faster on his snow- 
shoes down a great slope to the south, and at 
the bottom lay water. Never stopping, in he 
plunged, and when he came up, there were 
green trees and verdant meadows all around. 
He was one of a crowd of little boys again, by 
the side of the Bay of Fundy. 

Now he was canoeing, with his paddle dip- 
ping swift and silent in the waters of a little 
stream in Nova Scotia. As he drew near the 
shore he saw Marie; little Marie, with the 
black eyes and rosy cheeks. She stepped into 
the bow of his canoe, and together they sped 
away through a summer land. 

Now it grew colder and snow fell, and there 
was floating ice that crushed against the frail 
47 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


canoe and threatened to upset it. Marie at 
the bow grew rigid in the cold; and now it 
was not Marie at all, but a snow figure, and it 
weighted down the canoe until the icy waters 
crept over the gunwale, and down, down again 
he went with a gurgle. Everything became 
black and cold and silent ; a long, long silence. 
It was good to be down under the waves where 
there was no sun, no bitter wind, no snow. 
Perhaps this was death; well, it was easy go- 
ing this way, slipping into the unknown with- 
out an effort — down — down. Marie would be 
sorry — but — 

Out across the gray twilight of the north- 
ern night a silent shape was traveling; moving 
swiftly in a straight line, no matter what the 
impediment, toward Fort Stewart. Always 
on, on ; stopping only once or twice to pant, or 
to lick a bleeding paw; a dog with a heart of 
love for the man who was gentle and affection- 
ate to him; the man who caressed him. And 
that man lay in a hole in the snow, freezing 
slowly. Death was not far away. 

Dimly in his dog brain Zip knew that help 


A DOG OF THE NORTHLAND 


must be summoned. On and on, over the trail 
they had taken, he traveled through the great 
silences: Zip, the half-collie with the human 
intelligence; Zip, the half -husky, with the 
sturdy, long enduring body ; Zip, whom every- 
body for three hundred miles around knew as 
an East Main Fort dog, and a good one; Zip, 
the wise and tender! In that night when 
Francois began to see visions and dream 
dreams, Zip knew that things were not as they 
should be, and he stole from the shelter of the 
snow-hole and continued on the trail to Fort 
Stewart. Many times he had traveled it, and 
he knew as well as Francois, nay, better, every 
landmark of the way. Fifty miles he jour- 
neyed alone over the snow-reaches, ; and at 
last he barked at the gates of the fort. The 
men tumbling out at the sound found a dog, 
with bits of harness hanging to him, and snow 
and ice in his tangled fur. Exhausted he 
was, but eager to be off and lead them some- 
where. 

It did not take the men long. In half an 
hour a second dog train was ready, and Zip 
took the lead. Back again, over his old trail, 
49 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


he started bravely, but in a little while he 
stumbled and fell. Pluckily he rose and 
started again, but not for long. He fell, and 
could not rise, but lay there, whining jand 
ashamed. 

And now the men knew that he was too 
worn out for further travel, and they prepared 
their minds for a long trip. Zip was huddled 
in furs and put on the sledge, where he rode 
in state as a passenger, while the other dogs 
took the fresh trail — easy it was to follow over 
the snow barrens — and the men went swiftly 
alongside on their snow-shoes. 

Fifty miles, straight as the crow flies, they 
followed Zip’s trail. Every plunge and 
stride and leap was plainly to be seen in the 
fresh white layer of frost- jewels. How had 
the dog done it? Why had he gone to Fort 
Stewart instead of turning back to East Main 
Fort for help? No one knows, but he had 
done this thing and was still alive. 

On the second day he grew suddenly uneasy, 
and being rested with the ride of the day be- 
fore, he took the trail again, leading and bark- 
ing back, to be sure that the others followed. 

50 


A DOG OF THE NORTHLAND 


Now in the far distance a dark spot showed 
against the gleaming white. Zip gave a joy- 
ful bark, and, outdistancing the train, dis- 
appeared bodily in the snow. 

Something stirred Francis, as he lay in a 
numb unconsciousness; then suddenly out of 
the silent depths he shot up to life again. 
Somebody pulled him up by the arms: a daz- 
zling gleam of sunlight smote his eyes, and 
he cried out with the pain. Somebody was 
rubbing him with snow, and working his arms 
and legs. 

He tried to speak, but could only mumble 
something unintelligible. Then there was 
more rubbing, until the blood began once 
more to creep through his veins, and the agony 
of it brought him broad awake. Somebody 
hurled a dozen rapid questions at him in 
French. That was Bernard’s voice; Bernard, 
of Fort Stewart. Had he reached there, in 
spite of the snow-blindness? Now he knew 
that there were two men, though he could not 
see them, and at his side was a dog, whining 
and licking his face and stiffened fingers. Zip, 
good old Zip, was there. 

51 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


“You, Zip!” were Francis’s first two 
sounds that any one could recognize for words, 
and Zip gave a great bark and leaped upon 
him with delighted caresses. 

“Where am I?” said Francis, in French, 
and Bernard, his friend, answered in the same 
beloved tongue of the Acadian habitant. 

“We just pulled you out of your cache. 
You had a close call.” 

“How did you find me?” 

“Zip told us. Night before last he came to 
the fort. He led us back here.” 

“The other dogs?” 

“There were three jumped out of the hole 
when they heard us.” 

Francis nodded, as he gulped hot coffee. 
“They lay on top of me and kept me from 
freezing. Zip — he brought you and saved 
my life! Good old Great-heart — Zip!” 

“There ’s a hunter at the fort who will give 
the chief facteur fifty dollars for Zip” — (an 
enormous sum for a husky) . 

“And the chief facteur ” said Francois, 
“will tell him to keep his fifty dollars. If 
52 


A DOG OF THE NORTHLAND 


he were mine, I ’d not sell him for a 
thousand.” 

Then to himself he murmured, as he felt 
in his breast pocket for four crumpled 
letters : 

“No, not even to get sooner the little home 
for Marie and me!” 


53 


SIRRAH: A DOG OF THE 
ETTRICK HILLS 

COLD, nipping wind was blowing down 



through the hills of Bodsbeck, in the 
South of Scotland, straight into the faces of a 
tired drove of cattle that were plodding over 
a long descent amid the weird round, bare hills 
that resemble nothing so much as great Christ- 
mas puddings, with stones for plums, and here 
and there a lonely clump of fir-trees, like 
sprigs of holly, set askew. All day the cattle 
had been traveling, with scarce a bare hour for 
rest and the noonday meal of scanty grass. 
Behind them a drover dragged weary feet, 
grumbling at the bitter wind that bit into his 
bones. He was a tall, spare, angular man, 
with a hard face and a cruel eye. Not fearing 
hardship for himself, he did not hesitate to in- 
flict it on his cattle, and so urged them on with 
goad and curse. 


54 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 

“If ye were na’ so slow, we ’d be at the end 
of our journey the morrow night. Ye black 
imp of Satan, for what are ye hangin’ back 
now? I ’ll give ye something to hang back 
for!” 

His goad came down with a whack on the 
back of a dog that he led at the end of a bit of 
rope. The dog cringed and drew still farther 
away, shaking his head in a vain attempt to 
rid himself of the hated confinement. A lean, 
hungry-looking dog he was, covered with a 
fleece of long, ill-kempt, black hair. Awk- 
ward and holmely, with the lumbering gait of 
a dog just emerging from puppyhood, he had 
an unquiet brown eye that might have been 
full of courage and affection had not these 
been replaced by fear; fear of the harsh treat- 
ment of his master, and fear of the unknown 
into which he was going. 

“If ye were a decent-behaving body, ye ’d 
be helping me drive the cattle. Once I get ye 
home, I ’ll teach ye a thing or two, or I ’ll be 
knowin’ the reason.” 

The dog cowered behind the drover, looking 
at him out of the tail of his eye, with now and 
55 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

then a furtive glance behind him, as if he only 
waited for a chance to slip his noose, and be 
off in a wild dash by the way he had come, 
back to the little lad across the border with 
whom he had played in his puppy days. 

“Ye should be out there with Bob, driving 
the cattle, ye good-for-nothing, instead of pull- 
ing back like a coward and breakin’ the bones 
o’ my arm. Losh! I’ll get rid of ye if I 
can find anybody fool enough to pay me jnore 
than the two shillin’s I gave for ye.” 

Just as the sun dipped behind the hills and 
its last rays of comfort deserted the weary 
cattle, the drover, rounding a black knoll, saw 
in the distance across the moor a gray kirk 
and a thatched house. 

“Yonder ’ll be Ettrick Kirk and Ettrick 
House ; and Farmer Hogg ’ll be the man to 
give me a sup of porridge, and the cattle ’ll 
be having a bit of fodder and a drink at the 
burn.” 

He quickened his pace, and the cattle 
seemed to know that rest lay ahead and plod- 
ded a little more willingly. Bob, the drover’s 
dog, darted hither and thither, keeping his 
56 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 


charges in the narrow path, doing his duty 
like a well-trained shepherd; but always the 
black dog hung back, sullen and unbeautiful. 

“I ’d make an end of ye wi’ my stick across 
your head if we were not so nigh Ettrick 
House. I ’ve had more than enough of ye, 
ye ill-favored beast. Dang ye! where are ye 
gohT now?” 

For the black dog, suddenly struck by the 
scent of something more human than the dro- 
ver who held the leash, or something that came 
down the wind and whispered to his starved 
stomach of nourishment, had now darted 
ahead, almost pulling the man to the ground 
in his eagerness. In one direction or another, 
his great desire seemed to be to get away from 
the hated companionship of the ill-natured 
man. 

Smoke was rising from the chimneys of 
Ettrick House. A gray old building it was, 
built of whin-stones and thatched with straw, 
standing by the side of a noisy burn. In the 
byre cattle were lowing and sheep were bleat- 
ing as Farmer Hogg went among them, 
attending to the evening duties of the farm. 
57 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

He looked up as the sound of tramping hoofs 
drew near, and as the drover halted he 
dropped his pail and stool and came out to 
meet him. 

“Good evening to you. You are over-late 
on the road.” 

“It ’s late enough for us to be nigh famished. 
Could I get a sup o’ your good-smelling por- 
ridge for myself, and a bit of fodder for the 
cattle? We ’re traveling from Dumfries, and 
we have taken but a small rest since sunrise. 
I have money to pay.” 

“For the fodder you can pay. There be 
porridge enough for ourselves and for you, 
and a snack for the dogs. You ’ve a good one 
there with the cattle. The one you ’re hold- 
ing looks sullen. Is n’t he all right? 

“I don’t know what ’s the trouble with him, 
but he aye hangs back, and he will not go with 
me nor do anything. I have given a good 
pound for him on the border.” (This was an 
untruth, but Farmer Hogg did not know 
that.) “He seemed good-natured enough, 
but he hasna taken a liking for me. He ’s a 
fine breed, and I ’ll sell him to ye for a guinea 
58 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 


and two shillings. It ’s worth more than the 
two shillings to have brought him with me.” 

“Well, now. Come into the house, and I ’ll 
talk a bit with Jamie. Jamie!” 

At his father’s call a tall lad came out of 
the byre. He was dressed in brown home- 
spun with his shepherd’s plaid thrown over his 
shoulder, but his long curling hair, which fell 
down on his shoulders, gave him an unusual 
appearance. Although not past the growing 
age and still lanky, he gave promise of being 
a man of fine proportions; his face was round 
and ruddy, and his bright blue eyes were full 
of gaiety and good humor. His glance went 
immediately to the black dog with a keen look 
of appraisal. 

“Jamie,” said his father, “since you are soon 
to be a real shepherd you ’ll be needing a collie 
of your own. This one ’s none so bonny, but 
he has the look of a good one, if you win his 
confidence. Can you spare a guinea and two 
shillings out of your hoardings?” 

Jamie thought a minute. He would need 
the dog. In a year he would be sixteen, and 
then he would become a real shepherd, and a 
59 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

good sheep-dog would be indispensable. He 
took a long look at the black dog, walked 
around him and back for a look in his eyes, 
and then said: 

“ I ’ll give you a guinea, man, and it ’s 
plenty for such a poor, ragged, starved-look- 
ing beastie.” 

The drover appeared to consider this for a 
moment. In reality he was hugging himself 
for his canny bargain. 

“Well, belike I ’ll have to do it, but ye ’re 
getting the best of the bargain.” 

And so passed the black collie into the pos- 
session of Jamie Hogg. 

The drover rested, feasted, and next morn- 
ing passed on with his herd, and we are glad 
to be done with him. Jamie, holding the 
rope-end in one hand, seated himself 'on the 
stone sill of the byre; the black dog still kept 
the leash taut. 

“Come hither, lad. You look like the shir- 
ra [sherriff] of Selkirk, with your brown 
whiskers down the sides of your face. If I 
call you Shirra you ’ll be over-proud. I ’ll 
60 







With his eye on every move, and his ear cocked for the slightest 

word 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 

just have to take you down a bit and call you 
Sirrah. Come hither, Sirrah.” 

The dog, with tail still between his legs, 
stood hesitating before the unknown. The 
known, in the shape of the drover, had not 
been so pleasant as to make his homesick 
heart leap at the thought of another strange 
master. And yet this one seemed different. 

“Come hither, Sirrah lad!” 

It was a kindly, young, boyish voice, and 
the ruddy face and the merry eyes were not 
very fearsome things to look upon. Slowly 
the rope slackened; the tail lifted and waved 
its fringy length; the timid brown eyes met 
the laughing blue ones. Still shrinking a little, 
he came closer, with an apologetic wriggle, 
until Jamie’s hand rested on Sirrah’s head. 
A long look passed between them, and in that 
moment were born in the heart of the lonely, 
friendless collie a love and a confidence that 
found their echoes in the boy’s heart. 

“And now that we ’re friendly, come with 
me in the kitchen, and mither ’ll give you a 
supper to hearten you a bit, and a good 
61 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


drink, and you can sleep by the hearth till 
you’re rested. And then — and then, Sirrah 
lad, we ’ll make a man of you, and a braw 
sheep-collie.” 

Sirrah until now had known nothing of 
sheep -herding, for his one scant year of life 
had been spent as the playfellow of a little 
boy. Rudely jostled out of his youth on his 
journey with the cruel drover, he turned to 
Jamie Hogg with a devotion almost pathetic. 
With great patience the lad taught him the 
manceuvers of the shepherd-dog, and Sirrah 
watched with anxiety and eagerness, doing 
his best to understand, and trying every way 
deliberately until he found just what was 
wanted of him. When success crowned his 
efforts and Jamie’s approving word or pat 
told him that he had learned his lesson, his 
delight was boundless. 

His intelligent eyes followed every move- 
ment of the older sheep-dog, on whose actions 
he was to model his own ; he learned the words 
of command quickly, and once having mas- 
tered their meaning he never forgot. Indeed 
62 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 


he outstripped the other dog entirely in his 
eagerness to please. This new and altogether 
delightful master was worth working for, and 
it seemed as if he could not do enough to show 
his loyalty. In a week he could bring in a 
straying sheep ; in a month he could round up 
the flock. Hither and thither he would dart, 
pushing this one, barking here, growling 
there, till the sheep obeyed him as one. A 
word from Jamie would give him the key to 
the situation, and he would work out the prob- 
lem for himself. 

He had expedients and seemed to reason 
things out ; and if one method failed, he would 
try another, always in the end accomplishing 
his master’s desire. At the end of a year 
there was no more valuable or intelligent 
sheep-collie in the whole range of the Ettrick 
Hills. He could gather his clans on the 
moor, steer them down the steep ravines and 
across the gullies, pick out the proper places 
for fording a torrent, and guide them to the 
greenest pasturage. In the spring-time no 
dog was so clever at herding the young lambs 
that had been taken away from their mothers, 
63 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


and at the washing and shearing he worked 
with the wit and knowledge of the shepherds 
themselves. 

And Jamie — oh, he was never tired of dis- 
playing the prowess of his own collie. They 
were two leal and faithful comrades in the 
long days on the uplands, and many were the 
conversations they held; Jamie seated on a 
stone on the hillside, where he could watch the 
sheep at their feeding, and Sirrah, in his mo- 
ments of leisure, sitting in front of Jamie, 
with his eye on every move and his ear cocked 
for the slightest word. 

Sometimes the lad on pleasant days would 
take his violin with him ; a precious but wheezy 
instrument, for which he had paid five good 
silver shillings. Sitting in the soft sunshine 
he would draw the bow across the strings with 
a skill marvelous in an untrained, untaught 
youth. These were moments of ecstasy for 
Sirrah, who cared nothing for the value or 
quality of the instrument. Standing before 
the young musician he would lift up his voice 
in a howl that was meant for a song of heav- 
enly rapture. It would echo across the valley 
64 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 

like the cry of a lost soul. The ears of human 
beings are not attuned to the shades of joy 
and sorrow in a dog’s voice, but there was no 
doubt of the dog’s enjoyment of the perform- 
ance. The shepherds, herding their own flocks 
on the lonely hills, hearing that howl and the 
wailing notes of the violin across the uplands, 
would laugh: “There ’s Jamie Hogg, with 
his singin’ collie. Did ye ever?” 

Jamie’s mother, too, was a source of joy 
and delight to the musically inclined Sirrah. 
On cold, stormy days, when the sheep were 
foddered in the fold, he would lie at his mas- 
ter’s feet, in the but or kitchen of Ettrick 
House, listening to Margaret Hogg as she 
went about her work singing. She was al- 
ways singing bits of ballads and scraps of 
lilting song that made one think of the run- 
ning brooks in spring, the whisper of bending 
grasses in summer, the rustle of falling leaves 
in autumn, or the wind in the fir-trees in 
winter. She had a sweet, unspoiled voice, 
and the queer Scottish cadences and minor 
notes made Jamie’s heart ache with a sorrow 
that had no cause. Something just seemed 
65 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

to stir away down in the inmost depths of his 
soul. It might have been his own poetic ge- 
nius that was breaking earth; a prophetic 
whispering of the days when he would be 
known as the “Ettrick Shepherd” and a fa- 
mous poet. 

“Mither,” said Jamie one snowy morning, 
as they sat thus — she had just been spinning 
a little web of melody above the potatoes she 
was peeling, and Sirrah was rapping a soft 
applause on the floor with his fringy tail — 
“Mither, where do you learn all the sonsie 
bits of song you sing? I have heard you sing 
more than a hundred.” 

“Well, Jamie — ” Mrs. Hogg paused with 
her knife in one hand, and a curl of paring 
falling coquettishly from the nearly denuded 
potato. “When I was a bit lassie, there was 
an old minstrel who came to the village and 
sang to us. We do not have them any more, 
more ’s the pity of it. He was ninety years 
old when I knew him, and he taught me the 
songs. Aye, lad, and I know more than you 
have heard. Did I ever sing you the song 
of the laverock?” 


66 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 


And then would bubble up a little spring 
of melody that the lark himself would have 
had trouble to match for quality and sweet- 
ness. 

“Why do you not write them down, 
Mither?” 

“I have not the time, Jamie, with all the 
work about the house to be tended to, and I 
have to knit more hose for Tammas, and your- 
self needin’ new breeks. You must write the 
words your own self.” 

Jamie sat silent for a little while. Then 
saying, “Come on, Sirrah,” he mounted to 
his little chamber in the loft, found an old 
copy-book, left from the three months’ school- 
ing he had once had, turned to a blank page, 
and sat down to think, rubbing his fingers to- 
gether to stimulate thought, and at the same 
time to keep out the frostiness of the air. 

“I canna think without a pen,” he said fin- 
ally. Rummaging about on his little shelf, 
he unearthed an old bottle of ink and a quill 
pen. The bottle he fastened with a string 
into a button-hole in his waistcoat, and once 
more he settled down. 

67 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


Silence in the little room. Jamie’s eye was 
roving among the rafters, seeing nothing. 
Sirrah cocked his head on one side, and tried 
to guess what his master was having all this 
pother about. 

“I canna think with my coat on,” said 
Jamie finally, and despite the chilly air and 
the fine flakes of snow that were sifting 
through the cracks, off came the coat. 

After that genius began to smoke, then to 
glow, and finally to burst into flame. Labo- 
riously fashioning the letters like the italics he 
had seen in printed books, he finally covered 
the page of the copy-book, Sirrah never losing 
a motion of the hand that moved so slowly in 
this new and mysterious performance. 

But Sirrah never did understand, although 
many a time after that he watched Jamie 
making letters on paper. 

That evening Jamie came bashfully up to 
his mother, and handed her a sheet of the 
copy-paper. She took it and scanned the 
lines carefully; then she looked up at her son 
with a new light in her blue eyes. There were 
more things on that paper than just words; 

68 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 

there were the color and rustle and odor of 
the purple heather, the glory of the morning, 
and the throbbing meter of one of her own 
ballads. 

“That is not one of !my own songs that 
you have written out, my Jamie lad. You 
have made a song yourself. And it ’s a good 
one. Man, but I ’m proud of ye. You ’ll be 
a poeter one of these days.” 

“That is not all, Mither. Listen a bit.” 

He had his wheezy violin in his hand. Put- 
ting it to his shoulder, he played and sang 
the ballad to one of her own tunes, and Sirrah 
sang it, too, in his own way, and to his own 
ideals of what good music should be. Mar- 
garet laughed at the comical duet, but her eyes 
were full of tears. It was her own laddie, 
singing his first song to his mither. 

At the end she clapped her hands. “You ’re 
a minstrel, Jamie. Run down to the cow- 
house, and sing that for the lassies.” 

Nothing loath Jamie went. The maids in 
the cow-house were just finishing the even- 
ing’s work, and they greeted Jamie and his 
violin, as they had greeted him many times 
69 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

before, with great enthusiasm. He sang his 
song — that is, he and Sirrah sang their song, 
— to great applause, and “Jamie the Poeter” 
he became from that night. 

His first thrill of reward came when he 
heard one of the lassies singing his song over 
her work. It was a far cry to real fame, but 
it was the first whisper, and what could be so 
sweet as that first unconscious turning of his 
creation on another’s tongue? 

There came a day when “Jamie the Poeter” 
blossomed into a real, independent shepherd; 
when with the knowledge of herding that he 
had gathered from his service with the neigh- 
bors, and with his trusty Sirrah for his aide, he 
could go into the world and do the work and 
earn the wages of a man. Seventeen years he 
counted to his credit when he took service with 
Walter Laidlaw at Black House and the man- 
tle of responsibility fell upon him. 

Happy days were they that followed. 
Laidlaw was a good master and a distant rela- 
tive of his mother, and there was another 
youth of Jamie’s own age at Black House — 
Willie Laidlaw. Together they read books 
70 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 


and recited poetry while they herded the sheep 
through the summer days. Together they 
drove them into the fold at night; together 
through the long winter evenings they sat in 
the ingle-nook and dreamed of future glory; 
together they talked of the brownie who 
haunted the farm at Bodsbeck, of the fairies 
that danced in the moonlight nights on the 
meadow of Carterhaugh, of the little maid 
that was stolen by the fairies and was one day 
to become famous as “Kilmeny,” and to help 
make Jamie’s lasting fame. 

And always the dog was their companion, 
sharing their duties and doing his best, with 
his eager eyes upon them, to understand their 
talk. Who shall say at what point his under- 
standing failed him? Certain it is that he 
loved the sound of their voices and that he was 
happy to overflowing in the companionship of 
his beloved master. 

On the evening of their first arrival at the 
Laidlaws’ the family, according to custom, 
was called to prayers. The great Bible was 
taken down and opened solemnly, and Walter 
Laidlaw read a chapter and made a prayer 
71 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


for divine guidance, which was followed by a 
rousing “Amen!” Up to this point there was 
no better behaving dog than Sirrah. He had 
heard the Bible read before. Now the family 
rose to sing a psalm. At the first note Sirrah 
lifted his bowed head, and stood with the 
others. Then, warming to the work in hand, 
he sent forth a howl so mournful that no one 
could have guessed it was a song of praise. 
But Sirrah knew, and his booming baritone 
drowned every voice in the room. This was 
where he could shine, and Jamie had always 
encouraged him in his vocal practice. 

What was his surprise then when he heard 
Jamie, in a shocked whisper, saying: 

“Down, Sirrah! Down, lad! Hold your 
gab!” 

This must be some mistake; he could not 
have heard it. Sirrah howled the louder, his 
tuneful soul all athrob to the mighty measure 
of “The heavens declare the glory of God, and 
the firmament showeth His handiwork.” To 
what better words could a pious dog express 
his ecstasy than “Day unto day uttereth 
72 


A DOG OF- THE ETTRICK HILLS 

speech, and night unto night showeth knowl- 
edge”? 

The psalm suddenly stopped. Dark looks 
fell upon Sirrah from his master and the mas- 
ter of the house. The lads and lassies in the 
back of the room restrained their giggles with 
difficulty. Jamie’s fingers- seized his collar, 
and he was haled ignominiously from the 
room. To the outer darkness he went, hunted 
forth like a criminal. Looking backward 
from the peat-stack at the paradise from 
which he had fallen, he heard the psalm begin 
again, and the ruling passion was too strong 
for him. Standing there he burst forth once 
more into song. 

And now Jamie came out of paradise and 
hustled the psalm-singer into the byre and 
closed the door. Unpardonable cruelty! 

But Sirrah never gave up the struggle. 
Music was his passion. Even on the nights 
when Jamie, too tired from the day’s hard 
work, had gone to bed in the byre loft be- 
fore prayers, Sirrah, who slept below, would lay 
his nose to the crack of the door, and at the 
73 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

first note of the psalm he would “declare the 
glory of God” in his own way, and to his own 
meter. 

“Jamie,” said Walter Laidlaw one morn- 
ing, “will you go over to Mr. Tweedie’s and 
bring back with you that wild ewe I have 
bought of him? You ’ll need Sirrah to help 
you, for the wild ones are not so easy to man- 
age.” 

“And where will Mr. Tweedie be, Mr. Laid- 
law?” said Jamie. 

“You ’ll find his house at Stanhope, in 
Tweeddale. It ’s a fine journey in the hills, 
but it ’s long, and the track is not so easy. 
You ’ll have fifteen miles to go. I do not 
know if you ’ll get the ewe safe home, but you 
can try, and Sirrah’s a canny dog.” 

“Sirrah ’s the lad as ’ll turn the trick, Mr. 
Laidlaw. We ’ll be back with the ewe in two 
days.” 

“Well, you can try. There ’s not another 
dog I ’d trust to it, and you ’re the shepherd 
as gets it out of him.” 

Early in the morning they started, Sirrah 
74 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 

leaping at the heels of his beloved Jamie and 
eagerly looking for the sheep that he might be 
supposed to herd. 

“Nothing for you to-day, Sirrah. We’ve 
but to junket and find our way to Tweeddale. 
But it ’s a track we ’ve never traveled, and a 
long one. The finding of it ’s one thing, and 
the doing of it ’s another. But it ’s a bonny 
morning, and we ’ll frighten up the fairies by 
the burn-side. Off with ye, now. Do ye not 
see that old brownie peeping at ye over that 
stone? Get him and fetch him to me. I have 
never seen a brownie myself. Mind ye hold 
him!” 

Away darted Sirrah, but the brownie, if 
there was one, was too quick for him, and he 
came back, shamefaced, and dropped behind 
Jamie, until the next object of interest took 
him afield. It was indeed a bonny morning. 
St. Mary’s Loch lay so peacefully that there 
was scarce a dimple on the water, and the early 
sun was mirrored there in its round, red 
splendor. 

The dew sparkled jewel-like on grass-blade, 
flower, and weed; it dripped from the bushes 
75 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

with a silvery sound. The Yarrow flowed 
merrily down its rocky way, and far away, 
where it joined Ettrick Stream to form the 
Tweed, lay the meadow of Carterhaugh, 
veiled with a rainbow mist that seemed made of 
sprites that one after another unfurled their 
wings and sped in rosy cloudlets into the blue. 
It was a morning in a thousand. 

Now the way became wilder and they 
plunged through deep ravines and rocky gul- 
lies; across imad little torrents, rushing like 
truants from school, down, down, the easiest 
way, to the plain. Now they climbed a round 
bare hill; now they crossed an upland, purple 
with patches of heather. Here they rested by 
a noisy burn to eat their midday snack and 
cool their throats with the clear water. Now 
they tramped on through the gowans and 
heather across a moorland, and again they 
rounded a rocky cliff, where a false step would 
have sent them rolling into a black tarn that 
lay, mysterious and sinister, in a pocket of the 
hills. But the rock roses smiled at them and 
the scarlet pimpernel wooed Jamie the Poeter 
with its bright splotches of color, and the 
76 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 


whole world was such a poem as no man may 
ever put to paper. 

In the afternoon they came to Tweeddale; 
and finally they could see Stanhope, Mr. 
Tweedie’s home, and it was not long before 
they were resting on the door-stone, and Jamie 
and Mr. Tweedie were talking of the business 
in hand. 

“I have brought the ewe up from the flock, 
but she ’s as wild as a roe. I misdoubt if you 
can handle her. Have you a collie as is canny 
with the sheep ?” 

“None better in all the hills. He ’ll keep 
her to the track, no fear.” 

“Lad,” said Mr. Tweedie, “do you really 
suppose you ’ll drive that ewe home all the way, 
with all the sheep in the country betwixt you 
and the end of your journey?” 

“I ’ll just try it, Mr. Tweedie.” 

“Then let me tell you: you may as well try 
to travel to yon sun. You should have two 
dogs for the task.” 

“You do not know Sirrah, Mr. Tweedie. 
Mr. Laidlaw was n’t frightened to have me 
fetch her.” 


77 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


“Well, it ’s his own risk.” 

So it was settled that they should stay the 
night for a fair start in the morning. The 
ewe, now stowed away snugly in a pen, was a 
wild young animal, bred in the mountains, and 
with absolutely nothing of the tractable, lead- 
able nature usually ascribed to sheep-kind. 
In the morning, the instant the pen-door was 
opened, she was out and away in leaps and 
bounds, deer-like and fleet ; it would be a swift 
and merry chase for any who might follow. 

But Sirrah was ready. From the moment 
when they approached the sheep-fold in the 
gray of the morning, his ears had stood alert, 
and his tail waved in quick, nervous jerks of 
gleeful anticipation. As the ewe bounded 
away up a steep hillock, Sirrah stood still an 
instant, as if considering. 

“After her, Sirrah lad!” 

One keen look of understanding at his mas- 
ter, and the dog was away, like a streak 
of black lightning; but not in the wake 
of the disappearing ewe. No; cunningly he 
had watched the direction of her flight, and 
now, with the wisdom of a sage, he started on 
78 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 


a circuitous route, by which he could head her 
off and bring her back to Mr. Tweedie’s, where 
Jamie stood waiting, confident of the ability 
of Sirrah to do the work laid out for him. 

Up the hill went the ewe, picking her way 
over the rocks as one to the hillside born; 
around by the burn-side at the foot of the hill 
dashed Sirrah. What goes up must come 
down ; and that hill was not over-high. When 
the ewe, happy in her escape from bondage, 
came ambling down the othe?r side, there stood 
Sirrah, waiting; and along the burn, back to 
where she had started, she had to travel, willy- 
nilly. 

“You see!” said Jamie, bursting with pride 
and triumph. 

“I see,” said Mr. Tweedie. “You’ll have 
her home by nightfall. Losh! but he ’s a 
dog in a thousand. Well, good luck to you.” 

“Good dog, Sirrah! Hunt her home; home, 
Sirrah man!” 

Down the track they went; first the ewe, 
then the collie, then the boy. Now and then 
the harried ewe would make a dash up a slope 
or down a wild ravine; but never once did she 
79 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


trick Sirrah. With a watchful eye he ob- 
served her every turn, with supernatural 
wisdom he thought out her probable course and 
intercepted her, beating her at her own game 
of hide and seek. Soon they were both out of 
sight. Now and again, as Jamie rounded the 
track, he would catch a glimpse of flashing 
white and black, and knew that the dog was 
keeping her in the direction of home. Here 
and there they passed flocks of grazing sheep, 
and the ewe would make an effort to join her 
woolly comrades; but always there was Sirrah 
to be reckoned with. She would give a bound 
and a series of desperate leaps, and try to lose 
herself in a huddled flock. In at them would 
go Sirrah; unerringly he would weed out his 
one charge, separate her from her fellows, and 
send her bleating on her way. 

At the great height over Muir Water they 
crossed far in advance of Jamie, and after 
that, though he looked in vain on all sides for 
miles of the way, no longer did he see a trace 
of them. A slight uneasiness grew up in the 
heart of the young Ettrick shepherd, which 
grew to be a real anxiety as he followed the 
80 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 

lonely track without seeing the familiar flashes 
of white ewe and black dog. Once, down a 
lonely grill, he thought he saw the ewe, hut it 
was only the snowy foam of a tiny streamlet, 
as it leaped over a great boulder and hurried 
on to join the bigger stream in the valley. 

The shadows of the hills lengthened, and all 
the ravines lay in somber gloom ; only a twink- 
ling bit of water here and there gave back a 
gleam of the blue above. Higher and higher 
climbed the shadows till just the tips of the 
mountains glinted gold above the purple 
depths. The huddled groups of moss-grown 
rocks looked like bands of fugitives at prayer; 
the only sounds were the bleating and baa-ing 
of the flocks as they wound down the sheep- 
tracks with the blue and brown clad shepherds 
and the tireless, darting dogs. But never a 
sign of Sirrah or the wild ewe. J amie stopped 
a shepherd who crossed his path. 

“Have you seen a wild white ewe and a 
black collie with brown whiskers?” 

“None but my own and Farmer Gilroy’s. 
Have you lost them? If they had passed me 
on the way they would have disturbed my 
81 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

flock with rushing in and upsetting the quiet!” 

Again he stopped the master of a home- 
ward-bound flock with the same question. 

“Aye, I have seen them. The ewe came into 
my flock, fair spent with running, and would 
have hidden herself. But, no! at her heels 
came the collie, and off she goes like the de’il 
was after her.” 

“Likely I ’ll find them soon. Good even to 
you.” 

Jamie went on, but he did not feel over-con- 
fident. It was none too easy for himself to 
keep the path that he had never traveled until 
yesterday; a path wild and tortuous, crossed 
by other sheep-tracks, and almost lost here 
and there where it passed over rocky ledges 
that could not be beaten into a track. Sirrah, 
too, had never before made the journey from 
Stanhope. With even his sagacity, he might 
easily stray in following and driving back his 
erratic charge. 

The sun sank behind the farthest range of 
hills. Through a gap in the cleuch Jamie 
could see the meadow of Carterhaugh once 
82 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 


more, lying calm and peaceful in the mellow 
twilight. Almost home, and no Sirrah. 

No? Yes. On a corner of the last hill, 
beside a burn that flowed into Yarrow Water, 
sat a black dog with brown whiskers. Pa- 
tiently he sat until Jamie came near. His 
breath came pantingly, and his tongue lolled 
from his mouth. But his tail flapped on the 
stones, and there was a gleam of triumph in 
his eye as he gave Jamie a casual glance — just 
a flip of a look — and then gazed steadfastly 
once more at a white spot among the rocks. 
There stood the ewe, meekly enough now, and 
glad to rest after her wearisome chase. She 
was cornered neatly and could not have es- 
caped had she the strength left to try. As 
Jamie’s hand fell on Sirrah’s sagacious head, 
he looked up again, and said with his tender 
eyes: 

“She ’s yours, master.” 

Then he was up again, and driving her on to 
the byre, gay and animated under the approv- 
ing eye of Jamie the beloved. As the dark 
dropped down, he herded her, not toward the 
83 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

fold, but toward the dtfor of Black House, 
evidently confident that J amie would want her 
there. But to his astonishment his master 
took a hand, and the ewe was driven to the 
fold, and turned in with the other sheep. 

Down went Sirrah’s tail, down went his 
head. It was as if his hard work had been all 
for nothing; just to add one more to the 
goodly number already there. He had spent 
that weary day for his Jamie, and at least the 
bothersome beastie should have been given a 
pen near the byre loft where Jamie slept. He 
walked away in disgusted silence. 

“Come, Sirrah, and get your well-earned 
supper. Sirrah, Sirrah! you old fool, you’ve 
no call to be grumpy, after such a day’s good 
work.” 

But Sirrah came not. Down by the peat- 
stack he sat the whole evening and sulked, and 
not one bite would he touch, so disappointed 
was he at Jamie’s disposal of the white ewe. 
His actions said plainly: “After all my 
trouble, you turn the ewe into the fold like 
a common animal; and I had brought her for 
you alone, master.” 


84 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 

Lambing time had come again, and it was 
a very busy season for the shepherds at Black 
House. Seven hundred lambs did Walter 
Laidlaw count in his flock, and the time had 
come for weaning them. They were of a 
short, black-faced breed, wild and hard to 
manage ; and it was no small affair to separate 
them from their mothers in the fold. What 
with the ewes calling and the pitiful bleating 
of the lambs, there was a din and hubbub, you 
may be sure. Another lad called Jock was 
set as helper to Jamie to herd the lambs on the 
moor, and the two watched night and day. 
There was work enough and to spare cut out 
for both, and plenty more for Sirrah and an- 
other dog. For four days and nights the lads 
took turn and turn about, the dogs napping as 
they could. 

Then came a black night, moonless, and 
hung with heavy clouds that seemed ahnost to 
rest on the earth; one could not see his hand 
before his face, even on the open moor. The 
incessant bleating and crying of the hungry, 
lonesome little creatures filled the air with a 
great clamor. Now and then a few would 
85 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

detach themselves and run about aimlessly, 
bleating louder than ever, but they were en- 
camped too far away from the fold to hear 
their mothers’ pleadings, so it came to nothing. 
Sirrah or Tyke, the other dog, always discov- 
ered their attempts to return home and drove 
back the rebels. 

The night wore on, and finally the wailing 
and grumbling ceased. Tyke, wearied with 
the never-ceasing activity of the day, dropped 
exhausted by the side of Jock, who was sleep- 
ing heavily. Only Jamie, whose watch it was, 
moved to and fro to keep the chill from his 
bones, while Sirrah sat, sharing the Nvatch, 
with eyes on the flock, and with now and then 
a glance in the direction of the moving shape 
he so loved. 

Near midnight a silence fell, heavy as the 
hand of death. The little night noises of the 
spring seemed suddenly hushed. The oppres- 
sion of the still darkness and the long watch 
settled over Jamie, and even as he passed to 
and fro, he slept, as soldiers will sleep on a 
long and dog-weary night march. 

In the midst of the flock began a stir — a 
86 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 

ghostly murmur at first, then a low rumble — 
but it failed to rouse the sleep-walker or the 
lad on the ground. Only Sirrah rose with a 
low growl, waving his tail with a short nervous 
motion, his head forward and ears cocked. 

The noise grew slowly, louder and louder ; a 
sound of many bodies moving. Sirrah ran 
and put his muzzle in Jamie’s hand. 

“Master,” he seemed to say, “there is dan- 
ger! Awake and be ready.” 

“Eh, what?” said Jamie, lifting his head 
with a start. The sound was a roar now, like 
a waterfall: no, not that; it was the sound of 
an army tramping. The dead air woke to life 
and whirled around ; the whole flock was 
moving. 

“Jock! Jock! Wake up, man! The 
lambs are swirlin’!” 

Aye, they were indeed. Round and round 
in an aimless but concerted spiral, the lambs 
were moving; it was an uneasiness without a 
leader ; a spontaneous mother-yearning seemed 
to move them. Then as the momentum in- 
creased they seemed to fly off from their circle 
in three tangents; and with a roar of rush- 
87 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


ing bodies and a clamor of crying for their 
mammies, they separated, and the lads, with 
their eyes accustomed to the darkness, could 
see enough to know that the flock had broken 
into three great masses, one rushing south- 
ward, another to the north, the third and larg- 
est mass heading straight toward the fold. If 
they found their dams, there might be a gen- 
eral outbreak and many lives lost. 

“Sirrah! Sirrah man! They’re running 
away. Hold them back to the moor !” 

Jock and Jamie were madly waving their 
plaids and shouting, following the division 
headed for home. That must be stopped at 
all hazards. They whistled to the dogs, and 
Tyke came up excitedly; but Sirrah was no- 
where to be seen. 

Suddenly the retreating thunder came 
nearer again. The lambs headed for the fold 
had turned their course and were coming back. 
They swirled and swished once or twice about 
the astonished shepherds, and were off again 
into the darkness of the moor. 

“I ’m thinking they will not be back here,” 
said Jamie. “Do you, Jock, follow the flock 
88 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 


as is running south ; and I ’ll take the north. 
Tyke can go with you.” 

So they separated, and were swallowed up 
in the black silence. To make sure of the 
worst danger being passed, Jamie went to the 
fold, but nowhere was to be heard the bleat 
of a lamb. Then he struck out to the north, 
following a well-known sheep-path by which 
the lambs might have traveled. For an hour 
he walked, wrapping himself tighter in his 
plaid to keep out the chill of a rising wind. 
Now listening, now running ahead at some 
fancied sound; stumbling over rock and bush 
across the moorland ; now on the hills, with the 
shepherd’s instinct for the track ; up hope and 
down cleuch; across Yarrow Water at a ford; 
then listening again. 

No sound at all now, save the running of 
water and the moan of the rising wind in a 
clump of fir-trees. He must have followed 
the wrong path. 

Back again, exhausted and shivering, to a 
place where another track branched off and 
led up far away into the Black Cleuch, a deep 
and dangerous ravine. Still no sound nor 
89 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


any trace of the lambs or the missing Sirrah. 
A pale light grew and spread over the cloudy 
east, the wind which had nipped J amie began 
to clear away the gray banks, and the light 
grew to a ghostly yellow. It was easier now 
to travel, although, to men who are accus- 
tomed to the open at night, things become sim- 
ple that to the stranger would be impossible. 
Jamie had wandered far, and the first real 
crack of dawn showed him the Black Cleuch, 
wild and desolate, stretching its perilous rifts 
below him as he followed the sheep-path worn 
like a gully into its steep side. 

Across the Cleuch he saw a gray figure, also 
looking with searching weary eyes, and beside 
him a dejected sheep-dog. Jock and Tyke 
they were, and as Jamie came up to them a 
more forlorn, pinched, and haggard-looking 
trio one would not care to see. 

“Have ye seen anything of the lambs? ” 

“Not since the dawn. Once in the black- 
est of it a crowd of the beasties came past me, 
but they were daft-like, and Tyke and me 
could not stop them. They just went whirlin’ 
90 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 


away, and we lost them. Tyke is fair worn 
out, and could not run after theml” 

“Have ye seen aught of Sirrah?” 

“I do not know for sure. There was a 
beastie runnin’ alone behind, but I could not 
tell if it might be Sirrah or a lamb.” 

“Well, we must give it up, and go home. 
Mr. Laidlaw ’ll want to pull us by the ears for 
losing the lambs. Maybe we will get some of 
them yet, but it ’s more like they ’re all in the 
hills, and the smallest of them may be dead.” 

Heads down with disappointment, they 
started for home, the two lads and the dog, 
cold and hungry, dragging legs of wood. Out 
of Black Cleuch they clambered, over hills, 
and down into another wild gorge known as 
Flesh Cleuch. 

Suddenly Tyke lifted his head and sniffed 
the air excitedly; then he barked and started 
forward as fast as his tired feet could carry 
him. Round a bend he went, the lads follow- 
ing, and Jock cried: 

“There’s a body of lambs in the cleuch! 
Look, Jamie!” 


91 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


Jamie looked, and then started forward, 
roused to activity. 

“It’ll be Sirrah! the canny old de’il he is! 
He ’s found one of the divisions, and, he ’s 
holding them. Who knows but he ’ll find the 
others?” 

Yes, there stood Sirrah, ready to drop with 
fatigue and anxiety, but attending strictly to 
the duty that was plainly his, to hold the lambs 
until his master came. He gave a joyous 
bark when he saw Jamie, but he never stirred 
from the spot where he had mounted guard. 

The sun broke through the clouds and trem- 
bled a moment down the cleft to laugh at Sir- 
rah’s night work. The lads looked down and 
began to count the flock. 

“One hundred, two, three, four, five. Pre- 
serve us all!” said Jamie at last, with a great, 
happy roar of laughter. “It ’s not canny. 
Sirrah ’s got them all, the whole seven hun- 
dred! I dare say there ’s not one of them 
missing! What do you know about that now? 
Sirrah, you rogue, how did you know the way 
of finding them? It ’s past belief.” 

92 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 


“There ’s not another dog in the county as 
could have done it,” said Jock. 

Sure enough, there was the whole flock, not 
even the wee-est lamb missing. It seemed in- 
credible, but it was nevertheless true. How 
had Sirrah accomplished the wonder? 

No one will ever know how in the blackness 
of the night he had driven one division until 
he found another, and back again until he 
found the third. But there they were, a 
weary, footsore flock, and his own head sag- 
ging from pure heaviness; but all safe! 

Sirrah grew old. Alas, that the life of a 
dog is so short! When he would seem to be 
at his best, there comes the clouding vision, the 
weakened scent, and the faithful friend is a 
poor old body. 

There came a time when Sirrah could no 
longer do the active, alert work of a young 
dog, and a shepherd-dog must be equal to 
heavy tasks, or he is not of use. Jamie now 
had also a son of Sirrah, Hector by name; 
young, and well trained as his father had been, 
93 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


and he felt that he could not impose on the 
Laidlaws by keeping a useless old dog. The 
fight for existence on the bare hills of Scotland 
sometimes puts the recognition of past service 
in the background, and charity must bow to 
necessity. 

“Sirrah lad,” said Jamie, when he could no 
longer put off the evil day, “you cannot do 
your work well with your old eyes and your 
poor hearing. I must let you go. But 
you ’ll get a good master; and you know him. 
It ’s Sandy McWhirter, and the work with 
him ’ll not be hard. I cannot bear to let you 
go, old man, but go you must. No, Sandy, 
you need not give me the pound now. Bide 
a bit, and see how Sirrah holds himself. 

“Sirrah, you are to go with Sandy, and 
work for him. Do you know what I say, lad? 
Go away with him now, and you ’ re not to 
come here any more ” 

The light went out of Sirrah’s eye. Could 
this be Jamie speaking to him? He was to 
go with Sandy. Well, so be it. He looked 
at his old-time master with a heart-broken 
94 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 


whimper, and then, with his head hanging, 
followed after the new. 

After all, perhaps it was just a loan, to help 
Sandy with his small flock for a day. So, 
taking heart again, he went all the way with 
Sandy, and slept quietly through the night. 
Morning came, and he went with Sandy and 
his flock to the moor. All day long he worked 
nobly, driving the sheep in the way they 
should go, doing his duty like the best collie 
in the Ettrick Hills. To-morrow he would 
be going home again to Jamie, and then he 
would receive his reward of praise. 

Night came after a weary day, but no Jamie 
came to fetch him. Sirrah watched until the 
darkness closed him in, and refused his sup- 
per. Sandy, fearing that he might run away, 
shut him in an empty sheep-pen for the night. 
But he need not have feared. Sirrah had 
been told to stay with Sandy, and he would 
not go until Jamie came to fetch him, and 
risk the mortification of being sent back. All 
night he lay waiting; morning came, and still 
no Jamie. 


95 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


And now Sirrah began to realize that J amie 
had deserted him. There would be no more 
evenings in the cow-house when he could sing 
to the tune of Jamie’s fiddle, no more happy 
days on the hills and moors tending and herd- 
ing the sheep, while Jamie and Willie Laidlaw 
read poetry and talked of the fairies. Often 
before this, Jamie had lent him for a day to one 
of the family, but at night there was always a 
welcome back. Now that was to be no more. 
Sandy was kind; yes, but he was not Jamie. 
Sirrah’s allegiance had been given forever to 
one master. 

Through the night he lay awake, with his 
head between his paws, in deep dejection. In 
the morning hunger drove him to his food, and 
afterwards he went with Sandy to the fold. 

But instead of driving the sheep as usual, he 
hung back, and followed Sandy at a little dis- 
tance. He had made up his mind as to how 
he would meet his fallen fortunes. 

“At them! Sirrah!” commanded Sandy. 

9 “Don’t you see that old ewe running away? 
At her, man!” 

Into the flock dashed Sirrah, but he paid no 

96 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 

attention to the straying ewe. Among the 
sheep he ran like an unbroken puppy, bark- 
ing in the midst of them, and creating all 
manner of confusion in the erstwhile orderly 
flock. 

“What ’s got you, Sirrah? You ’re not 
yourself. Run for the ewe, you ill-favored 
sinner!” 

Sirrah cocked his eye at Sandy, tossed his 
head, and, with a loud bark of defiance, made 
another wild dash at the sheep, who lost their 
heads, and had it not been for Sandy’s other 
dog, they would have broken out across the 
moor in all directions. 

Sandy tried moral suasion, he tried beating, 
he tried bribing; he tried every known method. 
In vain. Sirrah would not work. The mas- 
ter he loved above anything on earth had de- 
serted him, and no one else should get a day’s 
work out of him. And no one ever did. 

Sirrah’s pride kept him from going back to 
Jamie. Somehow his lonely heart understood 
that Sandy owned him now. But work for 
Sandy he would not; no, indeed. If he was 
too old to work for the one that he loved, he 
97 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

was old enough to retire from active service, 
and retire he did. 

Sandy took him to his father, who kept him 
till he died, for the sake of what he had been 
in his young days. Never again did Sirrah 
attempt to go either to Black House or to the 
old home at Ettrick. 

But he knew the old road that Jamie took 
to the hill with his flock. He might perhaps 
go there for a glimpse of the master he so 
loved. 

In the early light of an autumn morning, 
as Jamie’s flock went afield, cropping the 
grass-blades along the accustomed track, 
Jamie saw waiting for him an old black-and- 
tan collie with brown whiskers. 

“Sirrah, Sirrah lad!” 

Sirrah came bounding almost up to Jamie. 
Then, suddenly remembering, he dropped his 
head and stopped still, with a piteous look that 
made Jamie choke back a tightening of his 
throat. 

“Sirrah lad, you are not my ain collie now, 
but you can come and speak to me in the morn. 
Old Sirrah, come.” 


98 


A DOG OF THE ETTRICK HILLS 


Sirrah came, but the old trustfulness was 
gone. He laid his muzzle in Jamie’s hand 
for one instant, and then turned and walked 
sadly away, following with his eyes the flock 
he had herded so faithfully and long. But 
he made no attempt to follow. 

Jamie went on to the hills with a sick heart. 
Now and then he looked back at Sirrah, 
watching, watching. But the past could not 
return, and the dog sat there, deserted and 
forlorn. 

Many times after that Jamie saw Sirrah 
waiting for him at the base of the hill, but 
never again did he come near, and never again 
did Sirrah do a day’s work for any man. 

He did not live long. What was there to 
live for, when his life-work was forbidden him, 
when his faith was uprooted, when his heart 
was broken? 


99 


DARKY: 

A NEW ZEALAND DOG 


N old bullock stood innocently grazing 



near a clump of bushes. His eyes were 
brown wells of candor, but his ways were full 
of guile. Near to him, and hidden under the 
clump of bushes, lay a man and a black dog: 
no thoroughbred, the latter — just a New Zea- 
land mongrel, homely and rough, but with a 
keen intelligence and a will to serve his 
master. 

Man, bullock, and dog — all were watching 
a herd of cattle that was grazing out on the 
plain, one wing slowly swinging toward the 
watchers. In a short time the three would be 
at work, and each knew his part. 

“One more, Darky lad; Jemmy, be ready. 
One more, and we ’ll call it a mob. We ’ve 
eleven already. If we get away with it, and 
we always have, it ’ll be a good haul.” 


100 


A NEW ZEALAND DOG 


Jemmy, the old bullock, looked at the man, 
and at a gesture known to him began to move 
slowly toward the nearing herd. 

A stock-rider went suddenly by them, but 
J emmy looked like and, but for the absence of 
a brand, might have been one of the herd, and 
the man and the dog were well under cover. 
The stock-rider rode on, and was soon lost in 
the dust ahead. 

“Now, Jemmy, in at ’em! Darky, to your 
work!” 

Darky leaped across the open; Jemmy sin- 
gled out a fat steer, and began to edge it away 
from the herd, the dog nipping at its heels. 
The man under the bushes chuckled. 

“They’re a great pair! They play the 
hands and I take the trick.” 

Slowly and skilfully the steer was sep- 
arated from its fellows. Now it disappeared 
behind the clump of bushes, in company with 
its new-found friend, Jemmy the bullock, 
though rather confused and bewildered by the 
manoeuvers of Darky. As they passed from 
sight the man rolled himself under the bushes, 
and came out on the side away from the un- 
101 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


conscious herd. All quiet out there, and the 
theft of a steer had not been noticed by a soul. 

It was an old trick, this; the herders called 
it cattle-lifting. The man — we will call him 
Stead — was known by name to every herder 
in the South Island of New Zealand, and 
vainly had he been hunted and tracked. He 
rode no horse and had ways of disappearing 
just when his pursuers were sure of him. The 
old bullock always looked mild and innocent, 
and Darky — well, where his master could hide, 
he could. 

Very carefully had Stead trained his quaint 
partners in crime, who worked simply for their 
master, not knowing they were thieves. And 
cunning indeed was the whole plan. All that 
was known was that here, there, and anywhere 
a fine beast might disappear, always from a 
point unwatched by the herders. So to-day, 
as on many other days, the dog and bullock 
did their master’s nefarious bidding. 

Sheltered by bushes and rocks, they drove 
the steer along a complete and selected cover, 
which had served their purpose many a time. 
Down through a dry watercourse they went, 
102 


A NEW ZEALAND DOG 


and no one the wiser. No great need for cau- 
tion here. There was no grass to tempt the 
herds, no trail to follow. The rolling pebbles 
left no sign of passing, and the man, following 
behind, covered all possible tracks. 

Now the banks grew steeper, and great 
rocks overhung the sides with a most comfort- 
ing shade, for it was midday and the sun was 
hot. Suddenly around a bend in the tiny 
canon appeared a trickle of water, then green 
grass. And now there opened out the most 
delightful of tiny meadows, walled in by the 
rocks, and here and there, grazing content- 
edly, ankle-deep in the infant stream, stood 
eleven fat cattle, the latest comer completing 
the round dozen. 

“Now then, there ’ll be no halting for lunch. 
Get your drinks, Jemmy and Darky, that ’s 
all. We ’ve got to be out of here, and on the 
quivy-vivy. Montross ’s got wind of us, and 
every last one of this bunch is branded deep 
enough to hang me. So it ’s Southland for 
us, and an all-night trip. Darky, herd ’em 
out !” 


103 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

On down the watercourse went the little 
herd, until the rock walls dwindled and were 
lost in a rolling down, and a wide plain 
stretched out before them. Stead gave a 
swift look around the horizon. Nothing 
stirred in all that great sweep of country. 
They must cross the open and reach the wood- 
land on the other side before they could feel 
safe from pursuit. Pity it could not have 
been done after nightfall. But there was no 
time to be lost. They must reach the butchers 
in Southland, some of whom did not hesitate 
to buy branded cattle. A branded hide could 
easily be destroyed, and after that, what evi- 
dence could be found? 

Across the plain trailed the little mob of 
cattle; not another living thing in sight. A 
half-hour more, one river to cross, and down 
in the green shadows on the other side was a 
straight get-away to Southland; and the 
buyers waiting. 

At the river-bank Jemmy’s wisdom came 
once more into play. There was a bridge far- 
ther down, but it would not be safe to cross 
a bridge. The current was deep and swift, 
104 


A NEW ZEALAND DOG 


but Jemmy was strong, and at the word he 
plunged in. Stead, who could not swim, 
held tightly to his tail, and thus won to the 
further side. Darky remained with the cattle. 

Old Jemmy floundered up the bank and 
began to bellow melodiously and invitingly, as 
if he had reached a land of clover and rice 
grass. Darky prodded the heels of the stolen 
herd. One by one they accepted Jemmy’s 
invitation, and soon the whole twelve were 
whirling along, down and across, the indefat- 
igable Darky always behind. 

Now it remained only for them to strike 
the old trail. In and out among the bushes 
went the cattle, dipping their muzzles into the 
rich grass, and now they disappeared into the 
undergrowth of the forest, then into the twi- 
light of the stately kauri pines, safe at last! 
“Halt!” 

Stead’s hand went to his hip-pocket. 

“No use. We ’ve got you covered. You ’re 
caught this time; and with the goods.” 

Three, six, eight grinning heads appeared 
from behind a fallen log. Montross stepped 
forward and quizzically eyed the procession. 

105 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


“That ’s a great little mess of brands you ’re 
driving. Merton’s, Comstock’s, Quarren’s, 
Fearings’ — Gad ! there ’s one of mine, too. 
Well, we ’ll take ’em in charge. They 
need n’t trouble you any more. Where ’d you 
get the old bullock? He isn’t branded.” 

Stead did not answer for a moment. The 
end had come for him; he had no doubt of 
that. After all these years of successful cat- 
tle-lifting, the one time too many had arrived. 
Well, he was game. 

“The bullock ’s mine. He ’s old Jemmy. 
And this here ’s Darky. Now you know the 
firm. They ’ve done the business, and that ’s 
why you never caught on to the way 
I worked.” 

“Ho, ho! I see. Well, it was a great 
game. You had us guessing. There won’t 
be much guessing for you, though. We ’ve 
got a little court all waiting for you at South- 
land; judge, jury, and clerk. We’ll try all 
three of you. Get your horses, fellows, and 
we ’ll start.” 

And they were tried, all three. Short 
shrift they made of Stead; twelve branded 
106 


A NEW ZEALAND DOG 


cattle were evidence enough. The jury found 
him guilty, and the judge sentenced him to 
prison for a long term. Exit Stead. 

Poor old Jemmy! When it came his turn, 
he did not understand. The court, however, 
thought it a great joke. He was tried and 
convicted on circumstantial evidence, without 
a word to say for himself, and sentenced to be 
shot. One crack of a rifle, and it was all over 
for Jemmy. 

As for Darky, he too was tried, convicted, 
and condemned to death. Somehow no one 
had the heart to carry out the sentence on the 
spot. He had been a thief, but he had only 
done his master’s bidding, according to his 
training. Although the jury was against 
him, his plucky eye gained for him many a 
friend in the audience. Particularly there 
was one who had seen that passage across the 
river with the herd. Darky was given a re- 
prieve of one night. 

Next morning in Darky’s prison cell was 
found an old decrepit black dog. No ques- 
tions were asked. The dog was killed accord- 
ing to the sentence. Thus Darky died by 
107 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


proxy, and the law had no further hold on 
him. 

Neither were any questions asked when a 
young herder sold a black dog to Belcher, one 
of the rich sheep-herders of the country. 
Darky himself was the only questioner. It 
is all very well for a man to buy a dog who 
has already been trained to a certain kind of 
service. But Darky had a mind of his own 
in the matter. He had loved his old master, 
and they had taken him away. Very well, he 
was not prepared to serve any master who 
came along and paid money for him. He had 
the right of an educated dog to choose. 
Work for Belcher he would not. 

Belcher was not a good man, nor a gentle. 
He shouted and swore at Darky and he 
whipped him. Then in a fit of anger he 
seized his gun. But as he trained his eye 
along the stock and cocked the trigger, there 
was no Darky to aim at. He had no intention 
of standing to be shot like old Jemmy; not he. 

New Hori, Belcher’s Maori shepherd, big, 
black, and good-natured, asked if he might 
take the dog. Belcher swore again. 

108 


A NEW ZEALAND DOG 


“Oh, take the cur if you like. He ’ s no 
good to me, nor to anybody. I ’ll save my 
cartridge for something worth while.” 

Hori whistled to Darky, who was skulking 
behind the group of sheep-herders. Every 
man at the Rugged Hills sheep station was 
watching, and more than one would have liked 
to take the black dog for his own, should Hori 
fail. There was a moment of silence. 

Darky took a good canny look at Hori. 
The man was of his own color, and his eyes 
were friendly. Darky concluded to trust him 
and came foward. Hori said a few words in 
a soft voice, patted the dog’s head, and when 
Hori struck out for his hut, Darky dropped to 
heel and followed him, as if the question of 
master was settled. 

Hori’s hut was on Weka Flat, many miles 
from the Rugged Hills station, but Darky 
traveled untiringly. On the way, Hori, from 
his seat on Mulhaly Brothers, his horse, talked 
to the dog. And although the Maori lan- 
guage was unknown to Darky, somehow 
an understanding grew up between the black 
man and the black dog, and from the time 
109 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

when Hori sat down on the door-sill of his 
little hut and took the quivering muzzle be- 
tween his two hands, there was never any ques- 
tion who was Darky’s master. 

Weka Flat was a dull country, and the life 
was dull. The flat itself was a small tract of 
grass country, surrounded by hills that were 
clothed monotonously in bunches of yellow tus- 
sock. No one ever came that way; it was an 
outlying district on Belcher’s property, and 
not even another shepherd had occasion to pass 
through it. Hori lived quite alone with the 
flock he tended and two of Belcher’s sheep- 
dogs. 

Darky did not find it dull, however; he was 
much too busy from the first. His old train- 
ing stood him in good stead. He was ac- 
customed to obey a gesture, and Hori soon 
taught him by signs to obey him. Belcher’s 
shouted orders had simply confused him. 

The first time Hori sent him into the flock, 
Darky singled out a fat, fine-conditioned 
sheep and brought him proudly to his new 
master. But he soon learned that the whole 
flock was his, and felt his importance accord- 
110 


A NEW ZEALAND DOG 

ingly. He liked driving the big herd, and it 
was not long before Hori could send him alone 
miles away to gather the sheep. He would re- 
turn, wagging his tail triumphantly, and with- 
out one missing. His old master had never 
had more than a few cattle or sheep at a time, 
and these were constantly changing. It was 
good to be driving the same flock day after 
day, until one knew every old ewe and wether 
by sight. Several months went by, and Darky 
was a happy, contented dog. 

There came a day -when there was a grand 
muster, and Hori and Darky started down the 
country with a mob of five hundred fat weth- 
ers. Darky was in ecstasies of excitement. 
He ran hither and thither, as if he were joint 
owner with Hori. It was a three days’ jour- 
ney, and the first night found them camped 
near a river-bottom, with little hills rising all 
about them, bare and ghostly. 

The flock, for some reason, seemed uneasy, 
and Darky had trouble quieting them down 
for the night. As Hori and Darky were fin- 
ishing their evening meal, a drop of rain fell 
on Hori’s forehead. Hori looked around. 

Ill 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


The daylight had long since faded, but even 
in the dark one could see a much darker mass 
rolling up from the west. 

Hori shrugged his shoulders, made his camp 
under an overhanging rock, where the rain 
could not reach him, and fell dead asleep. His 
horse grazed quietly near him, and it was 
Darky’s watch. 

The drops came thicker and faster, and now 
fell a torrent of rain. Such a flood had not 
been known in that region for years. Hour 
after hour it poured down. Rivulets began to 
flow in the little watercourses down the hills 
everywhere, toward the dry river-bed. And 
now it was no longer dry. The little streams 
gathered their forces and made a big stream — 
a roaring, tumbling mass that swelled and 
grew, rolling down the valley. 

A black dog thrust his nose into Hori’s face, 
and was gone again. Hori, half awakened, 
threw out his arm, and his hand touched a rim 
of water. He sprang up and looked around. 
A gray glimmer of dawn showed him the ris- 
ing river at his very feet. It was no longer 
even a river. It was a flood of muddy, toss- 
112 


A NEW ZEALAND DOG 

ing foam, out of which rose the little hills like 
islands. The dwellers in that land still talk 
of the wall of water that rose suddenly and 
swept away houses and people, devastating 
whole tracts of country. 

There was no time to be lost if Hori would 
save himself. The sheep he could see nowhere 
in the dim light, and Darky, too, had disap- 
peared. Lost, all of them, no doubt. There 
was no chance for them in this mad, sweeping 
chaos of water. Hori’s horse stood near him, 
whinnying with fear. 

There was a way out along a rocky ledge; 
just a bare chance. Now half in the water, 
now stumbling over slippery rocks, now leap- 
ing from islet to islet, gradually Hori and 
Mulhaly Brothers worked to higher ground. 
Half drowned, and with the horse gasping for 
breath, Hori saw on a hilltop, safe above the 
flood, a homestead. At its very door-stone 
Mulhaly Brothers fell exhausted. 

Saved! But the flock, and Darky — poor 
Darky — where were they? Lost for a cer- 
tainty. Hori’s heart sank as he thought of 
Belcher and his certain anger, and of his black, 
113 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


four-footed friend. Darky had wakened him, 
or he too would have been drowned. 

There was nothing to do but wait — three 
endless days — and then the water fell as sud- 
denly as it had risen. Hori made his way 
back to his broken camp. Everything had 
been swept away. There was no sign any- 
where of the sheep. Flung to their death 
they must have been on that awful night. 

Listen! Surely that was a sheep bleating! 
Around a hillock Hori rode toward the sound 
that grew ever louder. His heart pounded at 
his throat. A dog’s bark sounded clearly, 
and then, the wonder! There, on a “bachelor” 
hill, spread out over the whole rounding top 
of it, surged a mass of woolly fleece, and from 
side to side of it ran a weary, half-starved 
black dog. 

Hori was off his horse in a twinkling, and 
Darky was in his arms, panting, crying, mum- 
bling his ears and fingers for very gladness 
and relief from his long watch. 

Darky had been with Hori for two years 
when Belcher put the stout Maori and another 
114 


A NEW ZEALAND DOG 


shepherd in charge of a herd that was to be 
taken to Mount Cook District. This was not 
a difficult trek, except for the fact that they 
must pass a glacier-fed river, whose waters 
were cold, so cold that animals passing 
through it shivered for a whole day after. 
There were no bridges, no way across for the 
sheep and horses but to swim. The men and 
dogs went over on a rickety platform-like ma- 
chine, drawn through the air on a wire rope, 
thirty feet above the rushing torrent. It was 
a crazy affair- at the best, careening’ in a most 
fearsome way, and the landing was dangerous 
and rocky. As they neared the farther side 
the dogs scrambled to be first on the ground. 
There was a slip, a shudder, and Darky was 
pitched from the platform to the rocks be- 
neath. 

A cry — the only cry of pain he ever uttered, 
— and Darky rolled to the edge of the water 
and disappeared. Only for a minute; then 
Hori saw him rise to the surface, not swim- 
ming, but beating the water with his paws as 
if he were hurt. 

With a leap Hori landed on the rocks on all 
115 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


fours. Scrambling to his feet he raced along 
downstream to the water’s edge. Lying down, 
he stretched out an arm, just as the dog came 
floating past. 

Darky saw his master and gave one plead- 
ing glance for help; and then Hori reached 
him — -reached him by one ear — and drew him 
in. Darky could not help himself. Hori 
lifted him out of the water and looked him 
over. 

His right hind leg was broken, and there 
was something the matter with his hip. 

“Shoot him,’'’ said the other shepherd. 
“He’s no go'od any more.” 

For a moment Hori did not answer. He 
rose to his feet with Darky in his arms. 

“I get him home,” he said. “You take the 
sheep. Easy way now.” 

“You ’ll be fired. Belcher won’t stand for 
it if you desert.” 

“I get him home,” was Hori’s only answer, 
as he mounted Mulhaly Brothers, who had 
landed safely in front of the flock. 

Hori knew a short cut, dangerous, but 
shorter by twelve miles. On this trail he 
116 


A NEW ZEALAND DOG 


started. Darky lay in his arms, suffering si- 
lently, but trusting his master to do what was 
best. And Mulhaly Brothers too did his best, 
glad of the exercise that warmed his frozen 
blood. 

Over tussock and “Spaniard” they bounded; 
down the stony bed of a trickling stream where 
the pebbles rolled and the horse stumbled and 
risked his knees. Now he tore past Echoing 
Rock, which sent back the sound of galloping 
in mysterious sighs; now through scrub, now 
through the open ; now down to a river, which 
Hori knew to be the cruel Waitaki, with its 
wicked waters and treacherous, hidden quick- 
sands. 

Carefully they picked their way here. Once 
Mulhaly Brothers put a foot forward, and 
went down, down; only by a violent jerk back 
upon the reins did Hori save his horse from 
the inevitable death that would have followed 
another step. 

Safe on the other side at last. Now there 
was a dizzy climb up the steep bank, then a 
trail to be followed along the edge of a black 
chasm. A stone rolled under the horse’s foot, 
117 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

and — well, it was only one of those many 
chances that saved them from falling three hun- 
dred feet over the cliff. Now there was a 
climb down a hillside over a mass of shale and 
rubbish left by the rains. A little farther on, 
and there before them lay Weka Flat, and 
home! 

No time to lose now. Darky, who had lain 
unconscious through the last hour, opened his 
piteous eyes as Hori bent over him, nursing 
his hurts. The pain was fearful, but the 
plucky fellow never winced. He knew Hori 
loved him, and that the pain of setting and 
binding the splintered bones was help. 

Then came the knitting of the bones, con- 
valescence and recovery: no, not that, for 
never again would poor Darky do more than 
crawl to the door and lie basking in the sun. 
There was some internal hurt that Hori, with 
all his gentle nursing, could not reach. 

Back to Belcher’s at last went Hori, carry- 
ing the useless Darky. Perhaps Belcher 
would discharge him for deserting his duty to 
the flock. 

There is no doubt that Belcher would have 
118 


A NEW ZEALAND DOG 


sent him to the right-about had it not been that 
at this time there was a shortage of hands at 
the Rugged Hills station. As it was he got 
off with a tongue-lashing and was given a po- 
sition at the station itself. Nothing was said 
about Darky’s present condition, and Belcher 
did not know until — 

Well, it was weaning time, when the lambs 
were separated from their mother's, and all 
sheep -herders know how difficult it is to man- 
age the flock of ignorant, homesick babies. 
The air was full of their lamentations, and one 
stronger-minded than the usual run of lambs 
broke for home and mother. This should have 
been Darky’s cue for action, and Darky tried. 
The other lambs started to follow the belliger- 
ent one, and Darky hobbled to his feet, went 
a little way, then looked up at Hori sadly. 

No use. Darky would never run any more. 
The lambs scattered far and wide, and all the 
morning’s work was to be done over. 

And Belcher *saw. That was the worst of 
it; saw, in spite of the fact that Hori tried to 
shield the dog. 

“What ’s the matter with that cur?” 

119 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


Hori looked down. 

4 ‘Darky sick dog,” he said at last. 

“Well, we aren’t keeping sick dogs at this 
station. If they can’t drive sheep, they go. 
Hear that?” He looked sharply at the big 
Maori. 

“So that ’s what you were up to when 
you deserted the flock; nursing a sick dog. 
Bah!” 

He kicked at Darky, but Hori stood be- 
tween and got the blow. 

“See here, no hand of mine can fool away 
his time like that. I ’ll dispose of that nui- 
sance. You take him over to the Boundary. 
I ’ll teach him to work for a nigger when he 
would n’t work for me! Leave him there, and 
then come back and attend to your business or 
get out. Do you hear? The thieving mon- 
grel must go. Take him at once, and if I 
catch him here again — !” 

A Boundary dog’s life is the life of a pris- 
oner. He is simply chained on the outskirts 
of the range to scare away 1 intruders. No 
good dog is ever given the position. It is the 
120 



All day long Darky barked and howled his misery to the yellow 

tussocks 














































* 








































* 4 


































A NEW ZEALAND DOG 


useless, the unteachable, the good-for-nothing 
dogs who are reduced to this. 

So at Castle Bluffs Hori chained Darky, and 
went back to his work with a heavy heart. 
Every day, when his other work was done, 
Hori rode over on Mulhaly Brothers, seven 
miles, fed and watered Darky, fondled him 
for a short half-hour, and then rode back to 
the station. All day long Darky barked and 
howled his misery to the yellow tussocks, serv- 
ing his purpose through his very sorrow. At 
nightfall he sat with his eyes strained over 
the distance out of which Hori would pres- 
ently appear. Fed and comforted, he would 
pull through the night to begin another lonely 
day. 

One afternoon — it was Christmas Eve, and 
hot, stifling weather on the South Island of 
New Zealand — Darky was awakened from a 
nap by a friendly shout. He jumped to his 
feet, and saw riding toward him one of the 
herders from Belcher’s. 

The man stopped, dismounted, and bent 
over the dog. 

“Darky, old boy, you ’re having a tough 
121 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


time of it out here alone, are n’t you? I ’ve a 
mind — yes, I ’ll do it ! Belcher is off to 
Southland on a spree, and he ’ll never know. 
How would you like to spend Christmas with 
Hori?” 

Darky barked with joy at Hori’s name. 

“Here goes. Come on ; there ’ll be no harm 
done. The Boundary will be all there when 
we bring you back.” 

The chain was loosened, and with Darky in 
his arms, the herder leaped to his saddle and 
was off for the station. There he delivered 
the dog to the surprised Maori. 

Ah, but that was a happy Christmas Eve for 
the two! Darky snuggled close to Hori, as he 
sat in the compound. At night they slept in 
the same bed. Morning came, and Darky 
hobbled close to Hori’s heels, his eyes lighting 
up at every word from his master. Belcher 
would not be back before the next day, and at 
nightfall Hori would ride back and leave 
Darky at his post. 

High noon, and rest-time for the men. 
Darky lay asleep at Hori’s feet, in the happy 
122 


A NEW ZEALAND DOG 

Christmas sunshine. The silence of the wide 
New Zealand country lay around them. 
Hori’s glance at the black friend at his feet 
was soft and tender. 

A sound of horse’s hoofs, a slamming gate, 
and a stream of ugly oaths broke upon the 
stillness. Darky opened his eyes with a low 
growl. Hori jumped to his feet. 

Yes, the unexpected had happened. There 
sat Belcher on his foam-flecked horse. He 
was, as they say in that country, “a bit on.” 
He had a grievance. The sun and drought, 
not to mention whisky, had upset him. He 
had come home sooner than was anticipated 
and was primed for trouble. 

His eyes lighted on Darky and Hori. 

“Ha, you nigger! So that’s the way you 
use my time when I ’m gone! What ’s that 
dog doing here?” 

Hori looked foolish, but could not reply. 
“Ah! 

“Stand out of the way if you don’t want to 
be shot!” 

Belcher leveled his pistol full at the dog’s 
head, and Hori, instead of jumping to one 
123 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


side, seized Darky, and held him between his 
knees. 

“Don’t shoot him! Please, Massa!” 

“I ’ll count three. One — two — are you 
going to drop him? — three!” 

A good shot ! Belcher’s intoxication did 
not hinder his marksmanship. Straight be- 
tween Hori’s hands he aimed and fired. 

Darky was laid on the grass. Nevermore 
would he be a Boundary dog. A glaze stole 
over his eyes. They would never light again 
at the sound of Hori’s voice. 

Hori stood dazed, looking at Belcher — so 
white you would never have known him to be 
a full-blooded Maori. 

“Come up to the house for your check as 
soon as you like.” 

The black man stooped and lifted the body 
of the black dog in his arms. 

“Hori make you Christmas gif’ of money.” 

Without another word he turned and left 
Rugged Hills Station forever. 


124 


BYRON: 

A DOG OF SCOTLAND 



SHORT, sharp bark, a long-drawn howl 


of misery, and then silence. Dr. Ross 
turned aside into the little coppice that bor- 
dered the path along his meadow; for he was 
returning cross-lots from a professional visit 
in the near-by village. From the depths of 
the underbrush the sounds were repeated. 

“Something must be in trouble,” said the 
good doctor, as he hurried a little faster. 
“Bide a bit, there!” 

He plunged in among the matted vines and 
shrubs to the spot whence came the cries, and 
stopped suddenly, when a big collie appeared 
in the depths of the tangle. 

“Byron! And is it you, Byron;? What 
are you doing here? Poaching on my pre- 
serves, as I live! I didn’t think it of you. 


125 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


Why, what’s the matter? Poor old chap, I 
take that back. Some one else is the poacher, 
and he ’s caught you in his trap.” 

Byron whimpered. Big, fine sheep-dog that 
he was, bred to and doing a man’s work — 
here he was crying like a baby for sheer pain. 
And his paw — the poor paw of him, with which 
he had so unwittingly stepped into the poach- 
er’s trap — Dr. Ross released it from the cruel 
teeth that had snapped on it, and held it, bleed- 
ing and broken-boned, in his hand while he 
examined it. 

“That ’s a bad paw, but we can mend it. 
Don’t you know, Byron, that even innocent 
squirrel-chasing is wrong when we should be 
tending our flock ?*” 

Byron could not tell the doctor that he too 
had been cutting cross-lots to catch up with his 
master, James Burnet, who had gone on a 
hurried errand, leaving his sheep in the byre. 
But he looked his innocence and grief at Dr. 
Ross’s mis judgment of him. 

“There now, Byron, I did n’t mean to hurt 
your feelings. You ’re a good dog, and the 
best of you must have a failing or two, or you 
120 


A DOG OF SCOTLAND 


would all be angels and not dogs. There ’s 
my kerchief tied to stop the bleeding. Can 
you limp along a bit to my office? You’re 
too big to carry. We ’ll soon put you to 
rights.” 

Dr. Ross led the way out of the coppice, 
across the meadow, and into his own garden; 
thence to the little latticed doorway that 
opened into his private office. Byron hobbled 
dolefully after him. 

As he opened the door the doctor beheld 
James Burnet, his uncle’s head shepherd and 
Byron’s master, waiting for him in the cheery 
little office, his hands spread before the blaze 
that danced on the hearth, for it was autumn 
and chilly. 

“Good morning! What brings you here, 
James?” 

“I came, doctor, to get a bit o’ physic for 
the lassie. She ’s ailing. Byron,” — he looked 
sharply at the dog, — “what ’s wrong with 
you?” 

Byron came shambling in on three legs, and 
sat before his master, holding up his bandaged 
paw as his answer. 


127 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


“What have you done with yourself, man, 
that you ’re seeking the doctor?” 

“Caught his foot in a trap, James. Evi- 
dently there are poachers about.” 

“I bade him bide at home this morning, but 
he ’s always wanting to be with me, and I ’m 
thinking he came after me by the burn and 
over your meadow. Byron, do you not know 
the wrong of disobedience?” 

“It was the prompting of affection, J ames.” 

“Aye, I know, and there is no better dog 
with the sheep in all Scotland. Well, he 
must take his punishment with the rest of 
them that gang their ain gait.” 

“Wait while I dress the paw, James, and 
he can go back with you, unless Maggie is 
very ill.” 

“It ’s not so serious, doctor, just a bit pain 
i’ the stummick. I ’ll bide.” 

With swift, skilled fingers Dr. Ross cleaned 
Byron’s paw, set the bone, and bound it in 
splints; the dog, meanwhile, uttering no com- 
plaint, gritting his teeth manfully to the pain, 
confident in the doctor’s skill, and sure that 
what was happening was for the best. 

128 


A DOG OF SCOTLAND 


“He won’t be much use to you on the moors 
for a couple of weeks, James. But he ’s 
worth coddling, and he ’ll come out all right. 
He took the dressing like a stoic.” 

“He can bide with Ailsie and wee Maggie 
till he has four legs to run with. You ’re a 
good friend to him and to us all.” He hesi- 
tated: “I have a bit cough myself, doctor, 
that ’s stickin’ by me. Could you give me a 
dose for that?” 

“Indeed I can. Here you are. Coddle 
yourself a bit, James, and wrap up warmly. 
A cough like that is a bad thing to start with 
in a winter season.” 

The shepherd started home, with the dog on 
three legs at his side. For two or three days 
James came with Byron for the dressing of 
the paw; after that Byron came alone, and a 
great friendship sprang out of the big heart 
of the doctor and the gratitude of the dog. 
In as short a time as possible, with good blood, 
a fine constitution, and proper care, Byron’s 
paw was as good as the best. 

But even after he had gone back to his work 
with the flock, he made visits to the doctor, 
129 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


coming after the day’s work was over and he 
was released from duty. As for James Bur- 
net, when the first blasts of winter struck the 
rolling hills around Moffatdale, his cough 
developed into something worse, and before 
Michaelmas came around, phthisis in its worst 
form had left Ailsie without a husband, and 
Maggie and Willie without a father. 

As Dr. Ross sat by the sick man in his last 
hours, James opened his eyes. 

“Will you bend a bit nigher, doctor?” 

The doctor leaned above the bed, and his 
strong, warm grip, closed on James’s wasted 
hand. 

“You have been very good to me and mine, 
doctor, and I would like to give Byron to you. 
He loves you now almost more than any other. 
Will you call him here?” 

Byron lay on the door-stone, where he was 
wooing the thin rays of wintry sunshine. At 
the doctor’s call he entered the sick-room, with 
all the solemnity of the occasion glooming in 
his eyes. James laid his hand on the dog’s 
furry cheek. 

“Byron, you must always bide with Dr. 

130 


A DOG OF SCOTLAND 


Ross. I ’m going away, and I cannot come 
back to you. Ailsie woman!” 

A cough interrupted him, then a violent 
spasm of choking; a sudden gush of blood 
from the lungs, then there was no sound but 
Ailsie’s tearless sobs and the childish weeping 
of little Maggie, who did not understand but 
cried because her mother did. 

After the funeral Byron went home with 
Dr. Ross. For many days he was like a lost 
child, and would run off to his old flock when- 
ever a fit of homesickness seized him. But 
there was a new shepherd there and a new dog, 
and he soon grew to understand that his old 
master was gone and that he was to abide with 
the doctor, as James had willed. 

It was a much more comfortable life, if not 
quite so much to Byron’s liking. He would 
follow Dr. Ross on his rounds, waiting quietly 
by the horse during calls. The neighbors 
soon grew to know that a sight of Byron 
heralded the approach of Dr. Ross. He 
chose the stable at night for his sleeping quar- 
ters, for he was not accustomed to luxury and 
his own warm coat had always been shelter 
131 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


enough, even in the wild weather on the moors. 
As the months went on he grew quite happy 
and contented. If the old life among the 
heather called to him now and then with too 
sweet insistence, he would disappear, perhaps, 
for a day, but sunset found him always back 
at the latticed door of Dr. Ross’s office. 
Evenings he would spend with his head be- 
tween his paws, gazing at the study fire, rap- 
ping the floor with his tail when the back-log 
fell, or when Dr. Ross stirred up the embers. 

On a July day of the year after James’s 
death there was a fair in progress at Moffat, 
and the doctor walked over to see the merry- 
making. Byron, capering and delighted, ran 
hither and thither, filled with the joy of the 
day. Once he digressed, like the gentleman 
he was, to rescue the under dog in an unequal 
fight ; then he was off again, as if rescuing the 
oppressed were an every-day matter to him. 

The fair itself was like all fairs. After the 
races and the games were over, the doctor did 
not remain longer than to greet a few friends. 
He was past the days of giddy-go-rounds and 
sweetmeats. But while he gained nothing in 
132 



the door of the doctor’s office 
























- 






































































' 






A DOG OF SCOTLAND 


particular at the fair, he did lose something — 
the key to his laboratory. He discovered the 
loss on his return. 

In vain he tried his other keys in the lock. 
Nothing would fit. Then he bethought him- 
self. 

“Byron,” he said to the dog, who stood wait- 
ing to follow him in; “Byron, I have lost my 
key. Can you find it? A key like this one, 
Byron.” 

He showed him one similar to the key lost. 
Byron, with an expectant quiver, smelled the 
key; then, with a look of keen intelligence at 
his master, he trotted off by the road they 
had taken to the fair. 

Nose to the trail he went. Arriving at the 
fair grounds he did what a human detective 
might have done. He seemed in his mind to 
divide the whole field into squares. The 
crowd had thinned out so that he was not 
interrupted, but there were many interested 
spectators. Square by square he took the 
ground, running in circles from the outside, 
always closing in on the center. Over and 
over he did this. At last those interested 
133 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


enough to watch him at his manoeuvers saw 
him, as he was working near the grand stand, 
pick up something in his mouth, after which 
there was no more hunting. H-e turned tail 
and left the fair grounds, running swiftly all 
the way back to Moffatdale. 

Three hours after he had been sent on his 
quest he reappeared at Dr. Ross’s home. He 
carried in his mouth the lost key. 

There came a winter, a bitter time it was, 
when the snows came early and lay deep and 
long on hill and valley. Byron’s old flock had 
been grazing on the outlying hills of the dis- 
trict, and when the first flakes fell out of the 
leaden sky they were far from home. Then 
all at once the temperature dropped amaz- 
ingly, and an icy norther swooped down upon 
them. The air was filled with a mass of fine, 
stinging flakelets that bit in, even through 
homespun and coats of wool, blinding the eyes 
of sheep, dog, and man. Through the 
smother and the howling fury the shepherd 
of Moffatdale and his dog worked like heroes 
134 


A DOG OF SCOTLAND 


while there was yet a chance for life. Across 
the moor the swirling snow-devils danced their 
spiral reels, whirling up and up, to fall at last 
in ever-deepening drifts. The sheep, bleat- 
ing with fear and the awful cold, suffered 
themselves to be gathered from ridge and 
gully, and so clustered, running and stum- 
bling and ever funning to keep from freezing, 
they were painfully driven homeward. 

As the dusk fell, hardly making the world 
darker than had the storm, in at the byre 
gates, and out of the fangs of the gale, swept 
the huddle of sheep, dog, and master, safe! 

Safe, yes — but not all. James Burnet’s 
successor counted; opened his tired eyes and 
counted again. The number was sixty-five 
short. Where in that inferno, that shrieked 
and clamored outside, were the sixty-five? 
Lost, for sure! The shepherd started from 
sheer force of his duty toward the door, but 
returned as the blast nearly knocked him over, 
thankful that at least a goodly number were 
safe. It meant death to try to find the others, 
even had he not already been exhausted. He 
135 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

sat dejectedly, with his head in his despairing 
hands, while the storm beat vainly upon the 
byre. 

Morning, and a white world. Walls and 
hedges there were none; bramble, wild rose, 
and prickly whin-bushes — gone. Where were 
once black tarns, lay white floors; the dim- 
pling, cup-like little valleys were lost; the 
only colors were the gold of the clearing sky, 
the blue of the smoke-threads that stole 
heavenward from the buried cottages, and 
here and there, along the burn, a bit of slow- 
moving brown that had had the courage to 
break through the walls of its white prison. 

Three shepherds, good and true, with their 
dogs, started out in the early light to find 
the missing sheep. Three shepherds hunted 
through a weary day and dragged themselves 
home at night, not having seen the tails, even, 
of the lost. They sat in weary despair over 
their supper of steaming porridge in the 
kitchen at Moffatdale, and then, and only 
then, did one of them say: 

“Byron! He’d be the lad to find them. 

136 


A DOG OF SCOTLAND 


They ’re his ain sheep, and he kens all the 
crannies in the hills.” 

Thus it was that early the next morning the 
crestfallen shepherd of Moffatdale knocked at 
Dr. Ross’s door and told the tale of the dis- 
aster. 

“Byron!” called his master. 

Byron came eagerly. There was a new 
vibration in Dr. Ross’s voice; it awakened old 
thrills that had lain sleeping through the com- 
fortable years. He looked at the shepherd, 
and in his heavy homespun he smelled the old 
familiar odor of flock and byre. 

“Byron,” said the doctor, “there are sixty- 
five sheep missing. Find them — sixty-five 
sheep !” He repeated this slowly and clearly. 

The dog hung on his words for an instant. 
Then, lifting his head to the wind, as if he 
knew already what humans could not, he gave 
a quick, short bark and was gone, alone. 
Leaping, plunging, smothering in the drifts, 
then up and off again, he worked his way 
across the meadow, over the sleeping burn, the 
hill beyond, and a wind-swept upland. Then 
137 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


he bounded over the ridge and was out of 
sight. 

And the sheep — oh, he found them, of a 
surety; never doubt that! In a dry tarn-hole 
he found them, where they had sought shelter 
from the storm. There the snow had swirled 
and settled over them in a great drift, until 
they were huddled, safe and snug, in a room of 
snow, hollowed out by the warmth of their 
bodies, and covered with a roof of white flakes, 
three feet thick. No Eskimo was ever safer 
in his steaming igloo than the little band of 
strays, but it was close quarters, and two days 
without food had destroyed any sense of 
thankfulness they might have had at the 
outset. 

Into the little valley came Byron, sniffing 
and plunging and shaking the snow from his 
dark coat, and here there came to him the 
sheep smell; who should know it better? 

Byron barked, and down at the bottom of 
the cleuch there sounded an answering “Baa!” 
Down the rocks he felt his way, going cau- 
tiously as he neared the hole, lest he should be 
buried in the drift. Along a granite seam, 
138 


A DOG OF SCOTLAND 


where the scent came strongest, he began to 
dig with his paws. The snow flew as he tun- 
neled in; faster and faster he dug, until at 
last he broke through into the strange shelter. 

They were all there, and there were many of 
them who had known Byron of old. They 
obeyed his voice and started for the tunneled 
opening, with their old herder at their heels. 
Out they went, and over moor and fen and 
crag they traveled the white world at Byron’s 
bidding. It was eight of the morning when 
he started; at three in the afternoon the shep- 
herd of Moffatdale saw the last remnant of 
his flock silhouetted on a near-by hill-crest. 
Into the byre they came; sixty-five — not one 
missing. 

With a pause at the door of the cottage 
where Ailsie still lived, a bark of greeting to 
her and the lad and the lassie, and a look of pit- 
eous pleading for the old master who was 
“awa,’ ” he was off once more, back to Dr. 
Ross, his duty done. 

Once again in that bleak winter came a 
storm that raged like a sea on a rock-bound 
coast. The wind, blowing sixty miles an 
139 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


hour, drove the snow in clouds of fine dust 
that settled at last from sheer weight into 
huge drifts. It was a storm overtopping any 
storm known for years. Through it at night- 
fall Dr. Ross drove his gasping horse, for he 
had been caught while on his rounds. Under 
the buggy plodded Byron, weary, too, with 
the long battle. 

Giving the reins to the stable-boy, the doc- 
tor entered the cozy, fire-lit hall, and was met 
by his housekeeper. 

“It ’s a pity now, doctor, to tell you this, 
but Ailsie Burnet is much worse, and they do 
say it may be scarlet fever. Willie has come 
over through the storm, and he ’s very anx- 
ious. You 11 find him waiting in the 
kitchen.” 

Dr. Ross looked regretfully at the leaping 
fire, and through the doorway of the dining- 
room, where' he caught a vision of white linen 
and shining silver. Then he braced himself 
to the task that a country doctor must so often 
meet. 

“I had better go. I might send medicines, 
but it ’s unsafe to let Willie go back alone, 
140 


A DOG OF SCOTLAND 

and Ailsie may need my personal attention. 
1 11 just take a bite and some hot tea. By- 
ron, are you good for another journey? I ’ll 
need you to shepherd me if I get lost. Will 
you go to J ames Burnet’s cottage with Willie 
and me?” 

Would he? He needed no further asking. 
He rose from the hearth, where his long wet 
hair was already wreathed with steam, shook 
himself, and stood with lifted head, ready. 
The doctor made a hurried meal, eating it in 
morsels even while he made his preparations 
for departure. 

“I ’ll tie the medicines to you, Byron. If I 
fail to make it, you may be able to win through 
to the cottage with Willie. You are both 
young. Two miles ! Whew ! And my ho»se 
is exhausted. We must fetch it on foot by the 
short cut.” 

Bundled to the eyes in coats and mufflers, 
topped with a shepherd’s plaid, Dr. Ross 
stepped into the kitchen, to find that Willie, 
in his anxiety, had gone on ahead. Then he 
turned with Byron, and went out into the 
night and storm. 


141 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


There was no path. The snow, in ever- 
moving masses, was absolutely trackless. 
Even their own footprints, as they stepped 
out of them, disappeared as if by magic. 
There was nothing to be seen, only a gray, 
writhing vortex, with the doctor’s lantern for 
its center. Letting the dog lead the way, he 
went on with a prayer to the God of Battles 
for strength. 

Ailsie Burnet’s cottage lay at the head of 
a long gulch that ran between two hills. In 
fine weather one might climb with safety, but 
on a night like this there was much to fear. 
At the base of the hill Dr. Ross faced the real 
danger that rose before him. Down through 
the gulch the gale came whistling a death- 
song. It was as if the four winds of heaven 
had poured into that steep and narrow pass. 
Up and down the rocky sides of it they 
shrieked and hammered, clutching and throt- 
tling each other. Dr. Ross felt for the rocky 
wall at his left, and clinging to any stray bush 
or escarpment, he stumbled along with his 
bobbing lantern. Once he staggered and fell, 
and the lantern, immersed in the snow, went 
142 


A DOG OF SCOTLAND 


out. Dragging himself to an angle in the 
rocks where he could relight it, he looked 
around, fearful that Byron would be out of 
sight. 

No, there he stood, looming up big and 
black against the weird gray ghosts of the 
gulch, waiting the doctor’s good pleasure. 

On they went, two moving shadows, a light, 
and a ring of soft gold. Down the ravine 
thundered the tempest, and up they moved 
against it. Now they reached the second 
height and the beginning of a path on the edge 
of the steepest place, where they must round 
the hill. Here the wind hurled the doctor 
back, and he was obliged to move slowly and 
between the gusts, clinging desperately to the 
rock and edging along as he dared. Fortu- 
nate it was that the wind blew from the chasm, 
thus pinning him, as it were, to the ledge in- 
stead of blowing him away. 

Suddenly as he was rounding the bend 
Byron stopped, ears erect, listening, quiver- 
ing, as if something out there in the void had 
uttered a warning. The doctor listened, but 
the booming of the great guns of the tempest 
143 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

drowned every other noise. Byron calmed 
down again and proceeded slowly, still look- 
ing and listening. He showed no excitement 
now, but a steady self-possession. Now he 
stopped a second time, looked over the edge 
of the cleuch, then back at Dr. Ross, as if he 
were solving a problem. Then with a quick 
step he turned back to his master, and pressed 
against him gently, as if he were a sheep to 
be herded to safety. As plainly as words his 
gestures said: 

“Go back, master. Danger ahead!” 

Perforce the doctor began retracing his 
steps, obeying the superior instincts of the 
animal. Then, remembering his errand of 
mercy, he turned once more to his task. 

“We’ve got to reach the cottage, Byron, 
Ailsie may die.” 

For answer Byron gave a low growl, then 
a more savage one, as if he intended positively 
to dispute the passage. 

“All right, Byron, lead the way. I’ll fol- 
low. You know your business. Herd me, 
drive me, lead me ; I ’m yours to command.” 

Seeing the doctor’s docility, Byron started 
144 


A DOG OF SCOTLAND 


back around the curve. Into a side-path he 
led the way, and up a longer but less danger- 
ous track. So by a detour they came safely 
at last to the cottage. 

Dropping his spent body into a chair, the 
doctor sat for a moment until his breath came 
back and his heart began to beat to an easier 
measure. Then he looked up, and, before 
speaking, took in the situation. Little 
Maggie was alone with her mother. Willie 
had not returned! Somewhere out in that 
storm he was lost; struggling, perhaps dying 
or dead! 

Moments were precious now, and the 
mother, in her critical state, must not be 
alarmed. Swiftly the doctor untied the pack- 
age of medicine from Byron’s neck, and min- 
istered with his own hands and the little 
lassie’s help to Ailsie’s immediate wants. 

The woman groaned, opened her eyes, 
looked around the room, and then rested her 
fever-stricken eyes on Dr. Ross. 

“Where ’s Willie? Didna’ he come with 
you?” 

“He ’s all right, Ailsie. He ’ll follow later. 

145 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

I came on ahead. There now, Maggie lass, 
listen carefully and remember. This is to be 
given to your mother every hour, and this, as 
I have written on the bottle, when the fever 
goes down. 

“Now, Mrs. Burnet, you ’ll be feeling fine 
in the morning and I must get back. I may 
keep Willie all night, if the storm gets worse. 
Now good night, and a good sleep.” 

“Good night, and God be with you.” 

“God be with you.” The words drifted out 
into the tempest, as the doctor stepped over 
the cottage threshold and shut the door on the 
warmth and light. He had need of that 
prayer. Stooping, he spoke in the ear of the 
dog who had followed him; low he whispered, 
so that the words should not reach anxious 
ears in the cottage: 

“Byron, Willie ’s in the gulch. We must 
find him!” 

The dog gave a little whine, as if to say, “I 
understand,” and was off so rapidly that Dr. 
Ross had difficulty in keeping sight of him. 
Not by the road they had come did Byron 
travel. Instead he plunged into a one-time 
146 


A DOG OF SCOTLAND 


path that led directly down into the gulch. 
This was old ground to him and once his home, 
and Willie was one of his old family. He 
knew every inch of the place, and he knew 
things too that Dr. Ross did not know. 

Down he went. Here in the lower part of 
the gulch the wind did not reach with such 
fury, and a more rapid progress was possible. 
All at once Byron stopped dead in his tracks, 
and as the doctor caught up with him he be- 
gan pawing at the snow. Looking up along 
the face of the sheer rock to which he clung, 
Dr. Ross recognized above him the path 
around the bend, back from which Byron had 
herded him. Just a glimpse he had, and then 
the smoke-like rolling of the snow-eddies 
closed around him again, hiding all that was 
not within the golden ring around the lantern. 

Bryon was digging now; digging with all 
his remaining strength. He scraped frantic- 
ally at the snow, as if something was hidden 
there. In a half-stupor caused by the cold 
and exhaustion, the doctor watched. 

Was that a bit of homespun, that dark frag- 
ment in the snow that Byron’s work had dis- 
147 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

closed? Down went the doctor on his knees, 
and he too worked. The snow flew faster. 

Yes, it was Willie! Willie, who had fallen 
over the rock, just in the place from which 
Byron had warned the doctor. All weariness 
was gone now; man and dog worked for the 
life of the boy. 

For he was not dead. The snow beneath 
had softened the shock of his drop, and the 
snow that fell over him had kept him from 
freezing. He had been stunned, however, and 
had he been left to himself he must have per- 
ished. But Byron had found him. And now 
Dr. Ross, with the lad in his arms, made his 
last terrific struggle with the storm. Then, 
in the glow of Ailsie’s hearth-fire, Willie’s 
eyes opened, and his lips formed the words, 
“Where am I?” 

Ailsie was sleeping; so soundly that she 
never knew until the next morning of the 
night’s adventure. But she tells it proudly 
now. And in her eyes grows the light of ador- 
ation, as she speaks of the good doctor, and 
that shaggy embodiment of the stuff that 
makes heroes — Byron of Moffatdale. 

148 


BUM: 

A BROOKLYN DOG 


G OT any references ?” 

“No. D’ I look like havin’ ref- 
erences?” 

“Not any to speak of, I ’ll admit.” The 
owner of the Bergen Street Stables looked 
over the derelict specimen of humanity with 
amused contempt. The long, lanky form had 
the air of not having been well constructed in 
the first place; a suit of clothes, once dark 
blue — now faded to an indescribable greenish 
brown — ill covered him, so shrunken was the 
poor shoddy of its material. Frayed edges 
and unmended holes betokened the lack of 
personal care and the lack of any one to care 
for him; the coat-collar, turned up and but- 
toned to the throat, hid what the worn sleeves 
betrayed by their skimped length, that there 
was need of the garment to which one attaches 
149 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

collars and cuff s. Dried mud caked his boots 
between the holes and decked the man’s trou- 
sers, thinning out to splashes on the coat-tails. 
He was hollow-cheeked and hollow-eyed, and 
his whole being was a threnody of hard luck. 
It was almost a sacrilege to call him a man; 
but “God made him,” so he passed for one. 

“Where did you work last?” 

“On the Pennsylvania Road.” 

“Hm! President, I suppose, or maybe 
only a conductor in a palace-car.” 

“Quit yer kiddin’. I was diggin’ on the 
road-bed wit’ the Dagos.” 

“And you got fired?” 

“What if I did? You git fired for nothin’ 
nowadays. I was n’t a union man, and they 
found I had another man’s ticket.” 

“Yes, yes, I know. There is n’t much hu- 
manity in any kind of corporation nowadays. 
That ’s nothing, being fired. Anybody ’s 
liable to lose his place. But there ’s some- 
thing else. Done time, have n’t you?” 

“What business is that of yours?” The 
young man gave the elder a sharp sidelong 
glance. 


150 


A BROOKLYN DOG 


“Oh, nothing, nothing. I should say it 
was about two years ago, judging from the 
condition of your clothes. That ’s the regu- 
lar cut they give them when they let them 
out. I Ve seen others. And you have n’t 
got all of the lock-step out of your system 
yet. I saw you as you turned in. Quite a 
Sherlock Holmes, I am. Now, see here; I ’d 
rather like to know what you did. It was n’t 
murder, or you would n’t be out with that suit 
on, but while there are some things a man can 
live down, there are others that if he does once 
he does again — and worse. What was it you 
went up for?” 

“Burglary, if you gotta know. When a 
feller ’s hard up and can’t find nothin’ to do, 
he ’s gotta do what he kin. I s’pose it ’s no 
use now to ask you for a job.” The man 
coughed and turned away. 

“Hm!” The stable-owner rubbed his hand 
carefully over his beard, terminating with a 
roll of the fingers toward the tip. “How old 
are you?” 

“Twenty-three.” 

“Hm! Well, maybe it isn’t in the grain 
151 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


yet. A man that steals for a business is hard 
to cure ; but if it ’s a case of being hard up, 
maybe there ’s a chance. Now see here, boy.” 
Mr. Devin straightened up and looked di- 
rectly into the young fellow’s eyes. “It ’s 
plain to see that you have n’t had much of the 
upper crust, or the filling. Maybe it ’s your 
own fault, and maybe it is n’t. But you ’re 
young, and perhaps if you can get off your 
uppers you ’ll make good yet. I ’m going to 
give you a chance; not a big one, but a chance. 
If you can dig on a railroad bed, you can clean 
out stables. I need a stable-boy. But mind 
you, no drink, and no smoking. Cut those 
out. I can’t have my horses neglected nor 
my stables set on fire. As for stealing, try 
the straight thing and see how it works. 
What ’s your name?” 

“Gallagher. Thomas Gallagher. Say, Mr. 
Devin, you ’re white, you are, and you won’t 
be sorry.” 

“Forget it,” said Devin. “Here’s a quar- 
ter. Run and get yourself a cup of coffee 
and a sandwich before you begin. Got a place 
to stay?” 


A BROOKLYN DOG 


“No.” 

“Well, sleep in the stables if you like. I 
have to keep some one here, and the other men 
all have families. Wait. Got any money?” 

“Just this here quarter.” 

“Well, I ’ll give you part of your week’s 
wages in advance to tide you over. Curran 
here ’ll show you what to do.” 

Gruff, generous Mr. Devin turned back to 
his book-balancing in the little coop of an 
office, and Gallagher, with a tear trembling 
on his eyelid, — he was not so far from boyhood 
as to be above human emotion, — went about 
his new duties. 

“He trusted me. I ’ll show him.” 

And Gallagher did show him. Never had 
Mark Devin so little cause for complaint in 
liis under stable-hand. He cleaned the stalls, 
he fetched and carried, and even when the 
other men imposed on him, he did not resent 
it. “I ’ll make good,” he said. 

November was passing by, and Thanksgiv- 
ing was near. Already Gallagher had made 
a rough attempt at mending up the old suit 
for work, With his scanty savings he had 
153 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


acquired a sweater and a decent pair of trou- 
sers, and aspired, with his next week’s surplus, 
to a shirt. He was planning even still fur- 
ther grandeur. 

“By New Year’s I guess I ’ll be able to get 
me a good warm coat. This sweater ’ll have 
to do till then. Lucky I don’t have to pay 
room-rent.” He glanced down the street 
after Curran, who had just driven out with a 
dray. “Looks like snow in them clouds. Oh, 
well, snow ’s nothin’ when you ’ve got a job 
and a place to sleep. Kinder cozy in this here 
stable, too.” 

Snow it did. That great storm of Novem- 
ber 25 is not yet forgotten. A real blizzard 
it was, with wind howling, snow flying, drifts 
piling, traffic stopped. The next morning 
Devin could not get over from his home on 
Myrtle Avenue. One of the stable-men who 
lived near — Curran it was — floundered in, 
breathless and spent with his struggle. 

“Some storm!” he said to Gallagher. 
“You ’re lucky to be here without coming.” 
He removed his coat and cap and shook off the 
snow that hung, wet and thick, to the rough 
154 


A BROOKLYN DOG 

wool. “There won’t be any business this day. 
Devin ’ll play a losin’ game. No team could 
haul anything half a block. What, you going 
out? You ’re a fool to try.” 

“Got to get my breakfast, now you ’re 
here,” said Gallagher. 

“Sho! I ’d give you part of my lunch, if 
I had enough to last. You will have to get 
something, I suppose, and enough to last all 
day, so you won’t have to go out again. There 
is n’t a restaurant open, though. You ’ll have 
to go about three blocks. There ’s a little 
soup factory over on Atlantic Avenue that ’ll 
be boiling the pot, I guess. The folks live 
there. That ’s the only place you can be sure 
of.” 

Gallagher buttoned up his sweater to the 
last notch, and swung out, letting the wind 
help him. He covered the three blocks, de- 
spite the difficulties of travel. With a hot 
breakfast to hearten him he started back, but 
found that making progress against the gale 
was quite another thing. Pulling down his 
cap to cover his ears, and with his bundle of 
lunch under his arm, he started. But even 
155 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

while he had been sitting in the little eating- 
house, new drifts had whirled in on the side- 
street eddies, and the way he had come was 
choked and impassable. 

“I ’ll try it on the next cross-street” he said 
to himself. “There is a warehouse there with 
a covered walk.” 

Battling, pushing, stumbling, falling, rising 
again and struggling on, he fought his way 
along. Just one block more, and he would be 
back in the stables. 

Heavens! What a blast that was! Gal- 
lagher was turning the corner that led back 
to Bergen Street when the wind, rushing down 
between the buildings, caught him, knocked 
the breath out of him, and plastered him flat 
against a brick wall. 

“Jiminy! Just saved my cap that time. 
This beats anything.” 

He pried himself loose from the wall, only 
to be hurled into a snow-bank. Blinded, 
dizzy, and breathing in dry gasps, he righted 
himself. “What’s that?” 

Out of the other side of the drift came a 
wail, a pitiful, sobbing whimper. 

156 


A BROOKLYN DOG 


“Some poor cur lost in it,” said Gallagher. 
“Well, I got to save myself.” 

Again the cry, heart-breaking and almost 
human in its pathos. 

“That ’s trouble, no mistake. Guess I ’ll 
have to turn life-saver. Hi, there! Coming, 
if I can git to you.” 

For an answer, a yelp, faint but imploring. 

“Coming, coming there!” 

Gallagher waited behind the drift for a lull, 
and then made a plunge around to the other 
side. Gritting his teeth he burrowed in 
toward the place of wailing and pulled out 
the wailer, a small dog, with nothing to recom- 
mend him but the agony in his eyes. 

“There, you pore little feller. I ’ll save 
you. Stop cryin’ now. You and me is the 
the same breed, I guess. There!” 

He stuffed the animal under his sweater, 
bent his head to the wind, and staggered on. 
Now he was down, and he and his burden were 
floundering helplessly, almost hopelessly. 
Now he was up again. His breath came 
quick and hard, and his lungs felt as if their 
power was burning to the last flicker. Things 
157 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


began to go black. Then, with a final lurch, 
and still holding the dog, he fell heavily 
against the stable door. 

Curran opened it and pulled him in, picked 
him up, and set him on an overturned half- 
bushel measure against the wall; and while 
the boy slowly recovered his breath, the man 
took a good look at the specimen of canine 
infirmity that Gallagher had dropped on the 
floor. 

“Where ’d you get it?” 

“Snowdrift,” said Gallagher, when he 
could speak. 

“What d* you call it?” 

“Dog, I reckon.” 

“Pretty bum specimen. Worth saving, do 
you think?” 

“I had to. It yelped.” 

“Yes, I s’pose so, just as we preserve idiots 
and crazy folks — because we can’t kill ’em. 
What ’ll you do with him?” 

“Keep him. Think Devin ’ll let me?” 

“I dunno. He doesn’t look useful, and 
you can’t call him an ornymint.” 

Certainly he was not an ornament: of no 
158 


A BROOKLYN DOG 


race at all, although with an imagination you 
might guess that some ancestor at some time 
had been a fox-terrier. He was, or had been 
at birth, white, with black spots on his head 
and sides; he was so thin that every bone 
showed, so empty that his ribs almost knocked 
together; his surface displayed almost every 
species of eruption and evidence of assault and 
battery that could be collected together in so 
small an area — he had them all from the 
mange to a broken tooth, the latter evidently 
the result of application of boot. 

“Well, now you ’ve got the pretty little 
thing, what ’s your next move?” 

“First thing, I ’ll thaw him out.” Gal- 
lagher dropped on his knees beside the 
dog and began rubbing the cold-stiffened 
limbs. 

“Here ’s a horse-blanket to lay him on,” 
said Curran, who began to awake to an un- 
usual good- Samaritan feeling. “Say, as soon 
as you get him so ’s he can wiggle, I ’ve got 
some coffee in my tin, and I can heat a bit on 
the office stove. You keep rubbing.” 

Curran bustled off, and in a minute he was 
159 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

back. “Here, you hold his jaws open and 
I ’ll pour it down.” 

The dog opened his eyes as the warm liquid 
went down his throat. 

“That ’ll surprise his interior, I ’m think- 
ing. There, see! He’s coming to. What 
do you think of that?” 

The dog struggled and tried weakly to get 
on his emaciated legs, cowering at the same 
time, as if he expected a blow. 

“See that, now,” said Gallagher. “He ’s 
been kicked around so much that he does n’t 
recognize friends when he meets up with 
them.” 

“He ’s the limit for looks. Here, give him 
another nip of that — er — beveridge.” 

“Do you think Devin ’d object if I took 
him into the office where it ’s warm?” 

“Devin ain’t here, and he won’t be while 
this storm lasts, so he won’t know. Better 
thaw him out a bit more first, though. Too 
hot for a frozen dog in there. Then after a 
bit I ’ll give him a piece of cold mutton I got 
with my lunch.” 

“I brought something, too, from the res- 
160 


A BROOKLYN DOG 


taurant,” said Gallagher. “I guess we can 
manage to fill him up, and keep him.” 

“Well, you take the risks yourself. He ’s 
your — dog. What you goin’ to call him? A 
bum-looking beast like that ought to be proud 
of any old name.” 

“I’ll just call him that,” said Gallagher; 
“Bum. He ’s a bum-looking dog, and I ’m 
bum myself. Here, you Bum, you jest lay 
still inside this blanket. I ’m goin’ to git the 
frost-bite out’n you and some grub into you.” 

“And I ’d advise, first thing, that you give 
him a bath and get the mange off him. I ’ve 
got some soap to do the trick. I ’ll bring in a 
pail of water and heat it on the office stove, 
and we ’ll roll him up in the blanket till he 
dries off. A bath ’ll be the most surprisin’ 
thing yet. Likely the first he ever had.” 

The dog took the rough but kindly treat- 
ment in a dazed fashion, not understanding 
it in the least. But he did come around under 
it all and in a vague way began to realize that 
no harm was intended him. There being no 
business that day, the two men, after their 
regular work of tending the horses, spent their 
161 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


spare hours putting heart into this new-comer. 
He was fed, scrubbed, rubbed down, and 
dried, while the storm howled in baffled fury 
outside. By nightfall he was on his legs, fol- 
lowing timidly at Gallagher’s heels, cringing 
when spoken to, but sneaking up, in spite of 
his fear, for the kind touch of this new and 
extraordinary master. He even managed to 
coax a bit of wag into that broken tail of his, 
which never before had had any occasion for 
such demonstration. 

That night, after all the stable-work was 
done and Curran had gone home to his family 
around the block, Gallagher took Bum with 
him to his little cubby in the hay-loft, and to- 
gether they lay in mutual warmth and happi- 
ness, the derelict man with the hollow chest 
and the derelict dog with the grateful heart. 
And the storm hissed and shrieked under the 
eaves and around the window-casement in 
vain. 

Whatever Mr. Devin thought when he came 
in bright and early the next morning, he did 
not disclose. He only said, as Curran had: 

“Where did you get — that?” 

162 


A BROOKLYN DOG 


“In a drift,” said Gallagher. Then, with a 
new note in his voice, he asked : 

“Kin I keep him?” 

“Hm! He’s not a beauty, and he won’t 
bring trade. Just now he isn’t much of an 
advertisement for the business. Oh, yes, keep 
him if you want to, but fatten him up as soon 
as you can.” 

So Bum became an attache of the Bergen 
Street Stables. Beautiful he could never be, 
and never did he lose that habit of cringing 
when spoken to suddenly, but in spite of it, 
his confidence in humankind grew apace, and 
his devotion to Gallagher was almost abject. 
At his heels he followed from early morn till 
dewy eve. Gallagher picked a restaurant 
where dogs were favored, and many a bone 
came his way from the slipshod waiter. 
Whatever Gallagher could afford for himself 
he shared with Bum, not minding that his 
purchase of warmer clothing had to be put off 
a little farther. December was a mild month 
that year, and Gallagher made up for the chilli- 
ness of his exterior by the warmth about his 
heart. He began to whistle about his chores, 
163 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

though now and then he would be interrupted 
by a fit of coughing. The dog grew in plump- 
ness, if not in grace, but Gallagher himself 
did not. 

Christmas Eve, and a cold, clear sunset, with 
a rising wind. The people doing their last 
bits of shopping drew their furs closer as they 
stepped out into the street and joined the gay 
hurrying throng. Mr. Devin, about eight of 
the clock, came into the stables for a last look. 
He glanced at the thermometer that hung out- 
side and saw that it registered ten below zero 
and was still falling. Curran and the other 
men had gone home, and he stopped to glance 
over his accounts and to smile at the balance 
to his credit. He smiled again, as he looked 
at an armful of bundles that were to go home 
with him, and be added to the piles under the 
bulging stockings: yes, and for the wonderful 
Christmas-tree, waiting in the darkened room, 
around whose doors five merry children had 
been tip-toeing all day. Christmas was a 
great institution for the kids. And he and 
mother, too, were as excited as the rest when 
164 


A BROOKLYN DOG 

Jenny or Rob laid on their altars some gift 
of their own contriving. 

Devin had been prospered this year; yes. 
He looked into the glow of the little office 
stove. Already the red was dying out, and a 
chill crept through the office walls. 

The sound of a hollow cough came from 
the stables without. 

“Gallagher!” 

Gallagher came in with Bum at his heels. 

“It is cold to-night. Be sure and give the 
horses good, thick beds, and blanket them well. 
Will you be all right yourself?” 

“Yes, sir. I ’ve plenty of bed covers, and 
I kin git an extry horse-blanket, if need be.” 

Devin looked sharply at the thin face. 

“You don’t look any too spry. Bum here 
is growing to be the handsomer man of the 
two. Aren’t you well?” 

“I ’m all right,” said Gallagher with a little 
shrug. “Jest a nasty little cough. It ’s noth- 
in’. Next week pay-day I ’ll be able — ” 

“See here, haven’t you got warm under- 
wear?” 


165 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


“Have n’t needed it. As I say, next week 
I ’ll—” 

“Now, now, I didn’t think of that! This 
Christmas Eve business started me to remem- 
ber that I have n’t paid you very big wages 
while I was trying you out. Why, yes, a 
fellow ’s got to live, and even bones for Bum 
must cost something. See here, you come up 
to my house to-morrow at two o’clock, and 
we ’ll give you a Christmas dinner that ’ll 
make your eyeballs jingle. And I ’ve some 
old underwear you can have; and I ’m going 
to raise your wages ; you’ve done mighty well. 
Good night, and a merry Christmas!” 

“Merry Christmas, sir. Mr. Devin, you ’ve 
been white all through to me, and I ’m not f or- 
gettin’ it.” 

“All right, all right. You ’ve proved my 
theory. A man needn’t always stay in the 
gutter because he fell in once, or because he 
was born there either. I take it you never 
had much of a chance.” 

“I was born on the East Side, sir, in New 
York. I guess I ’ve been pretty tough.” 

Devin pressed the lad’s hand and was gone 
166 


A BROOKLYN DOG 


out into the cold street, whose pavement rang 
like ice under steel runners. “I have n’t done 
my whole duty by that boy,” he said to him- 
self. “He ’s got no one to look after him, and 
he needs mothering. Mary ’d love to do it, 
God bless her!” 

The streets rang with happy laughter. 
How bright the little shops were! Devin 
swung aboard the cross-town car for Myrtle 
Avenue, and his mind went back to his arm- 
ful of bundles and the cheery apartment where 
his wife and children waited for him. 

After Devin had gone Gallagher opened his 
palm and stood staring at a crisp five-dollar 
bill. Devin certainly was good; the lad — he 
was only that — had never known anything like 
this before. And to-morrow there was to be a 
great dinner, and he was invited ! He put the 
bill carefully away in an old wallet and locked 
the stable door. Then he saw to it that the 
horses were well provided for against the 
growing cold. He shivered as he turned to 
go upstairs to his loft, and his face was drawn 
and blue. “I ’m lucky to have this place to 
sleep,” he said, “but it ’s an awful cold night. 
167 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

Bum, you and I got to snuggle up mighty 
close or we ’ll get nipped.” 

The night grew colder and colder. Gal- 
lagher tried in vain to coax the sluggish blood 
in his veins to a faster beat; the frost seemed 
to burrow into him, blankets or no blankets. 
He was grateful for the warmth of Bum 
against his body, but how cold his feet and 
hands were! 

Hours went by. The stars burned clear 
and cold, high above the thin, keen air, but 
they did not comfort; sleep did not come to 
Gallagher. 

One of the horses grew restless. “Likely his 
blanket ’s off ; I ’ll go down and see.” Galla- 
gher wrapped the covers around Bum and 
stole down the stairs. Yes, old Bayberry 
was uncovered. He fastened the blanket 
more securely, and piled straw deep around 
the horses’ legs. Somehow it seemed less cold 
here than in the chilly loft. What harm if he 
sat for a bit on that pile of straw, with a blan- 
ket around his shoulders? For a moment, 
anyhow. So weary he was with the lack of 
sleep that to climb the stairway just now 
168 


A BROOKLYN DOG 


seemed impossible. Just a minute, and then 
back to Bum. How queer and dry his lungs 
felt. His cough racked him, and he lay back 
exhausted. 

He was growing sleepy now; the cold did 
not seem to bite so fiercely. He wrapped the 
horse-blanket tighter around him, and nodded. 
. . . Sleep was coming . . . how good it was 
to sleep and sleep and not feel the cold. 
. . . The Christmas bells were ringing now; 
they made a pretty sound. It was Christmas 
morning, and at two o’clock he was to have a 
grand dinner. . . . 

A milk-cart went creaking down the street, 
with the driver clapping his arms around him 
to quicken the circulation. The milk-cans 
clattered and the frost sang on the tires. Bum 
stirred in his blankets and nosed around for 
Gallagher, but he was gone. He listened; no 
sound. He bounded out and down the stair. 
Yes, there was Gallagher, his Gallagher. 
Running to him, he poked his nose into the 
hand that always caressed him, but Gallagher 
did not move. The dog licked the white, 
pinched face upturned on the straw. 

169 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


There was a quiver of the eyelids. “Good 
old Bum!” murmured Gallagher, and then the 
eyes closed again. 

The dawn was coming in through the stable 
windows. It was not usual for Gallagher to 
be asleep down here, and so fast asleep. It 
was not all right. Bum must find help. He 
ran to the office ; no one was there. He threw 
his weight on the street door; it was fastened. 
Nothing left but to call for help. Bum barked 
and barked. Then he ran back to Gallagher. 
He did not stir. Bum returned to the door, 
sat down, and howled long and impotently. 
No answer. Again he barked and howled his 
misery and fear. Raging back and forth he 
kept up his desperate appeal. 

The children in the tenement opposite the 
stables opened their eyes as the gold began to 
creep up in the east. “Merry Christmas!” 
they shouted. “Let ’s look in our stockings. 
My! but it’s cold. There’s a dog barking 
somewhere; I bet he ’s shiverin’.” 

The elders stirred in their warm beds. “I 
wonder what ’s the matter with that bother- 
some dog? He ’s spoiled my nap.” 

170 


A BROOKLYN DOG 


“Merry Christmas!” shouted the children. 
Sure enough, and the flapjacks must be baked. 
Mrs. Kittery shivered and began to dress hur- 
riedly. 

Still the barking and howling, more frantic 
and insistent. “Where is that brute of a 
dog?” said Pat Kittery. “Sounds as if he 
was over in Devin’s stables.” 

“I believe something ’s wrong,” said Mrs. 
Kittery from the kitchen, where she was mix- 
ing the batter. “Why don’t you go over and 
see? That Gallagher stays there nights.” 

Kittery put his nose out the window. 
“Br-r-r-r!” he said, and put on his overcoat 
and cap. He went down the stair, crossed 
the street, and knocked at the stable door. 
The barking and howling became more frantic 
than ever. 

“What ’s the matter in there?” 

“Oo-oo-oo-oo !” wailed Bum. 

“The door is locked. “I ’ll have to go 
around the block and get Curran. Wait there, 
you. I ’m coming back.” 

Curran and Kittery entered the stables. A 
little half-crazed dog jumped on them, and 
171 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

then darted away toward the corner of the 
stable. The men did not follow immediately. 
He ran back, renewed his pleading, and was 
gone again. 

And then they followed him. When they 
reached the pile of straw, Bum was crouched 
on Gallagher’s chest, moaning and licking the 
cold cheek. 

Curran stooped and placed his ear close to 
the white face. 

“There ’s life there yet. We ’ll bring him 
around. Bum, you saved your pal; he ’d have 
been gone soon. We ain’t been as decent as 
you, or he ’d have been better fitted to be here 
this cold night. I ’ll telephone Devin.” 

When Mr. Devin came Gallagher was just 
able to smile weakly despite the pain in his 
chilled limbs. 

“We are going to fix you up all right, boy, 
and then for a merry Christmas dinner, and a 
few other changes. Bum, you go to the party 
too, and you deserve the best bit of breast on 
the turkey.” 

“Good old Bum!” said Gallagher. 


172 


BRAKJE: 

A KAFIR DOG 


T HE lion was dead; no doubt as to that. 

He lay motionless, his ragged black mane 
stained with blood, and the small knife that 
had cut his strand of life still sticking in his 
throat. His yellow-tawny eyes had not yet 
lost their luminous glitter, and his jaws were 
set just as when he had last torn the flesh of 
the man who lay beside him. 

The man was a Kafir; big, black, and mus- 
cular; bred to the wild, or he never could have 
killed the lion in single combat, old though 
it was — so old that one of its fangs was miss- 
ing. The man, too, appeared at first to be 
dead. Brakje thought he was. He crept up, 
whining uneasily, and began licking his mas- 
ter’s wounds. 

After a while Wanya, the man, groaned and 
opened his eyes. The soothing touch of the 
173 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


little tongue on his broken body brought him 
partly to consciousness. The hot South Af- 
rican sun poured relentlessly down into the 
kloof where he lay. Up above him he could 
see the wheeling vultures that had already 
scented the dead lion. It would not do to lie 
too near. With an agonizing effort he 
dragged himself on his elbows up the rise 
and into the shadow of a clump of prickly- 
pear bushes. Once in the shade, he lapsed 
again into a dead stupor. 

Brakje had seen his master lie asleep many 
a time, but never like this; this was different. 
And Brakje loved him. He must do some- 
thing. The little dog scampered away among 
the karoo bushes, and was gone half an hour. 
When he returned Wanya was sitting up, 
looking in a dazed way at his wounds. There 
were many, and one leg was terribly lacerated. 

Brakje held in his mouth a dead bird, not 
yet cold. This he laid at his master’s feet. 
He looked up at Wanya, wriggling and wag- 
ging his tail, happy at having done a service. 

“Good dog!” said Wanya, in the Kafir 

174 


A KAFIR DOG 


tongue. “I will not starve with you to help 
find food for me. I must fix this leg, though. 
That lion made a bad crunching.” 

With great trouble and with his teeth set 
to the pain of it, he managed to close the gap- 
ing wound, fastening it with a wisp of grass. 
Then he fainted again. Brakje waited near, 
whining for recognition of his gift. When 
Wanya returned to consciousness Brakje had 
laid the bird in his hand. 

“A good thought,” said Wanya. “To eat 
will give strength. My knife — ah, the lion 
has it. I must do without.” 

He skinned the bird with his fingers and ate 
the raw flesh. There was still water in the 
flask he carried at his side, and he took a 
scanty mouthful, knowing that with the ris- 
ing fever of his wounds there would be infinite 
need of economizing the precious drops. 

With such leaves and grasses as he could 
reach from where he lay, he roughly tended 
his other wounds. It was a poor substitute 
for surgical dressing, but it must do. Some 
one might come that way and save him. He 
175 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


was off the beaten track, but there were always 
chances ; and men learn, in the South African 
bush, to take chances and look for them. 

Exhausted, he lay back again and slept. 
When he awoke, Brakje was again licking the 
wounds as if they were his own. 

The sun had dipped behind the rim of the 
wide karoo country; the twilight softened 
rough rock and clay and thorny cacti alike into 
velvet. The wind stole softly over the desert 
distances and touched Wanya’s black fore- 
head with its cool fingers. He slept again, 
and Brakje lay beside him under the stars. 

Morning. When Wanya awoke he had 
first to break through a numbing stiffness. 
Then hot needles of pain stirred him again, 
and he opened his eyes to look straight into 
the eyes of Brakje, who stood above him. In 
Brakje’s mouth was a little flying-squirrel, 
fresh-killed. Brakje was not a beautiful dog. 
He was just one of those curs of mean de- 
scent that one sees in the Kafir kraals. But 
Brakje was distinguished above others of his 
race by the qualities of his master. Wanya 
was good to him and did not kick and beat him, 


A KAFIR DOG 

and the little dog’s devotion was fearless and 
doubly loyal. 

He laid the animal down, and barked, 
“Breakfast-time!” to Wanya. 

And W anya blessed the gods of his religion, 
and ate. There was not much flesh, only a 
few mouthfuls, and he threw the cleanly 
picked bones to Brakje. 

Brakje did not touch them. Instead he 
yapped an explanation to the effect that he 
understood it was a poor meal for a man, and 
was off again. In an hour he returned with a 
spring-haas, or jumping hare. 

This was a great find, and Wanya satisfied 
his hunger, and with one draft of water felt 
that he might pull through the day. Brakje, 
too, seeing that there was plenty and to spare, 
crunched hungrily the tender bones. 

The shade where Wanya lay was good, for 
the clump of prickly-pear was thick and tall. 
Moreover, from the tips of its fat leaves hung 
red fruit. Not the best fruit in the world, the 
prickly-pear, but it is juicy, and that means 
much in a desert country. 

The sun rose high in the blue. A swim- 

177 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

ming haze of heat quivered over the dust -yel- 
low plain, and Wanya’s wounds throbbed from 
mere pain into torture. But for Brakje he 
could not have stood it. The dog seemed to 
have decided that he was the trained nurse 
on this case without a doctor and his training 
was to lick the wounds and keep them clean 
and free from festering germs. As he would 
have done for himself, so did he unto Wanya, 
and the man was saved from blood-poisoning 
and was grateful. 

When his master dropped asleep Brakje 
was off foraging. It was not easy to find 
food enough to meet the demands of Wanya’s 
hunger, but he did his best. A sound or a 
scent, and Brakje went stalking in that 
direction. How he would steal up to a bird 
or a squirrel he might tell you; I cannot. But 
Quartermaster Brakje never let a day go by 
without bagging and bringing into camp one 
or more victims. Now and again if Wanya 
offered him the bones which he could not eat 
Brakje would crunch them, but usually he sat 
by, watching his master’s meal with dumb 
devotion. 


178 


A KAFIR DOG 


Once an army of ants went by. Wanya 
could see them on the kopje just below him 
hurrying along, all eager to reach some 
treasure their scouts had discovered. He 
waited in horror. If they came his way it 
meant, in his helpless condition, death; death 
too awful to think of. He held his breath. 
One or two stragglers turned toward him but 
immediately faced about, returning to the 
original scent. Past him they scurried, a long 
sinister train, and Wanya breathed again. 
It was the lion lying down there in the kloof 
that had attracted them. The living man 
was spared. 

The days went by. The water was all gone 
from the canteen, and now the prickly-pears 
were called into use. With a dead stalk 
Wanya would dislodge one from the bush 
above him; then, peeling away the uncomfort- 
able prickly skin, he would suck the juices 
from the pulp. Down in the kloof Brakje 
had found a tiny pool in a rock-cup, left by 
the rains; and the warm, brackish liquid was 
enough to slake his thirst. Thus he kept him- 
self alive for his master’s service. 

179 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


Always from day to day Wanya’s suffer- 
ings increased. Seven times the sun-dragon 
leaped from the east, forked with fury, and 
shot its fiery rays down at him, each one tipped 
with the poison of pain. Then Wie kindly 
shade of the prickly-pears would crawl to him 
and save him from going mad. The eighth 
and then the ninth morning came. 

Wanya lay in a delirium. Now he would 
start up raving, beceause a milk-bush had 
pointed its fingers at him. He was sure now 
that it was turning into a Zulu warrior, 
threatening him with his assagai. And he lay 
there helpless, unable to rise and fight it out. 
Now a vulture swooped down from the wheel- 
ing circle above the lion and sat eying him, 
until he made a violent effort and frightened 
it away. Now the agony of his wounds was as 
hot irons, searing him. Now he was back in 
the kraal, where he had been born, watching 
the warriors in their rejoicing over some vic- 
tory and wondering when he too would be a 
man and a warrior, with spear and shield. 
Now a lion with a black mane stood over him, 
ready to devour him. . . . 

180 


A KAFIR DOG 

He cried aloud, and struck out — to be first 
with his own claws — and the thing was bowled 
over; it was Brakje. 

The dog picked himself up and looked at 
his master, wondering and bewildered. That 
was not like Wanya. Other masters struck 
their brakjes, but not his — not his Wanya. 
He would get him another bird. No doubt 
he was hungry. 

Brakje started off. Game was not too 
plenty. If only now he were strong enough 
to bring down one of those hartebeests, grazing 
out on the veldt. That would make a feast 
that would cure Wanya, and save Brakje him- 
self from starvation. His own emaciated 
little body cried out for nourishment. But 
always first, while he had the strength, he must 
look out for his master. 

It was harder now. Brakje was weak and 
could not leap far for his prey after he had 
stalked it. At last, after several vain efforts, 
a squirrel jumped the wrong way, and Brakje 
had him. 

The long day was nearly spent now. With 
the fresh food and the cool of the night Wanya 
181 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


would be better. The dog dropped his game 
in his master’s outstretched hand, and waited 
expectantly. Wanya lay still; stiller than 
ever. Brakje barked. The Kafir did not 
waken. 

A little tongue flicked over the black face. 
Wanya was not dead, but he no longer knew 
or heeded his dumb servant. He lay, hover- 
ing between life and death, now and then mut- 
tering something that Brakje could only half 
hear and wholly failed to understand. 

Brakje did not sleep. All night he 
watched, now tending his master’s wounds, 
now lying by his side, with his nose on Wan- 
ya’s arm, looking into his face with a growing 
fear. The coolness brought no change to the 
sick man. Under the dark dome he lay, with 
his face upturned and his eyes sightless. The 
stars marched on their unaltered courses across 
the sky. Dawn came, with the promise — or 
the threat — of another unbearable day; per- 
haps the last, for Wanya. 

The squirrel lay in Wanya’s hand un- 
touched. His feet were in the dark valley, 
and he did not even know the sun had risen. 

182 


A KAFIR DOG 


High noon again, hot and blistering. 
Again the heat-waves danced and shimmered 
over the karoo country. The milk-bushes 
pointed their fingers in vain. Wanya lay as 
one dead. 

Brakje awoke from a doze of exhaustion 
and turned his nose in the direction of the 
wind. Across the arid plain came the scent 
of something that made the dog leap to his 
feet. Wavering with weakness, he started in 
the direction whence it came. That was 
the smell of meat cooking; and there would be 
men — and help — help for Wanya! 

Over the kopje he dragged himself. Now 
the air stirred more freshly, and the scent grew 
stronger. Through the prickly-pear and 
karoo bushes he pushed his way. 

Up near the top of the kopje, where there 
was wind enough blowing to cool them after 
the morning’s exertion, a party of hunters 
had dismounted from their sweating horses. 
They built a fire, and were preparing their 
noonday meal. They were a jolly trio, and, 
flushed with the success of the morning, they 
183 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


made merry and laughed to scorn the scorch- 
ing heat of the South African sun. Three 
dead blesbok lay in the shade of the bushes, 
and the Kafir beater of the party of English- 
men skinned and prepared the flesh of another 
animal for roasting over the coals. Now the 
savory odors floated away on the wind, min- 
gled with the aroma of boiling coffee. 

The hunters threw themselves down in the 
best shade they could find and watched the 
operations of the Kafir servant. They had 
not long to wait until the meal was ready, and 
they lost no time in gathering around the 
appetizing luncheon. 

“Well, I am glad for one that I came to 
Kimberley to hunt,” said Jack Aronson. 
“Other people may go skirmishing around 
here after diamonds, but it would be a good, 
big precious stone that I would take in ex- 
change for that gallop over the veldt in the 
early morning, before we sighted the herd.” 

“Somehow it seemed a shame to kill ’em. 
They were having as much fun as we were.” 
Dick Colby, the smallest and most thought- 
184 


A KAFIR DOG 


ful-looking of the three, helped himself to an- 
other piece of meat. 

Wade Ashton laughed lazily. “You seem 
to be enjoying the result of the hunt as much 
as anybody, and I ’ll wager you were as ex- 
cited as any of us when you brought down 
your buck.” 

“I ’ll own up to a certain amount of incon- 
sistency. The sport of chasing the jolly 
little beasts is fine, but I ’ll never get over a 
feeling of having committed a crime when I 
see a beautiful animal lift his head and look 
at me, snort, and then crumple down into a 
lump of — meat.” 

“You ’ll never make a hunter, Dick,” said 
Jack. “You haven’t the true sporting in- 
stinct. You ’re a cracking good shot, though. 
Pity you ’re so tender-hearted.” 

“Well,” said Dick thoughtfully, “you see, 
my first experiment at hunting was unfortu- 
nate. When I was a small shaver I used to 
practise with my first little rifle, shooting at a 
sardine-tin down by the stables at home. 
When I got so I could hit the tin in the white 
185 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


of its eye, I was fired with an ambition to go 
farther and do real deeds. 

“I wandered down through the kitchen gar- 
den, looking for game. A little bird was sit- 
ting on a cherry-tree, singing its heart out — 
just bubbling over. The thing you call the 
sporting instinct gripped me. I aimed and 
fired, never dreaming that I could hit any- 
thing so small; he wasn’t bigger than my 
thumb. Without any rhyme or reason in the 
world, I killed — a song. Every time I ’ve 
ever hit anything since, I hear that little bird. 
Rotten, isn’t it?” 

“You ’re a poet, Dick,” said Wade. “Mere 
men like Jack and me can’t get these fine side- 
lights on things. . . . What ’s that? Do you 
fellows see a ghost of a dog over there, or am 
I seeing a mirage?” 

A little ragged animal, with his bones barely 
hidden by his baggy skin, peered out from 
behind a karoo bush just above them, and 
whined piteously. 

Jack, the elder, and host of the party, 
turned his head. 

“That? That’s a brakje; one of those 
186 


A KAFIR DOG 


mangy curs that hive with the Kafirs. The 
kraals swarm with them sometimes. Don’t 
encourage him; he ’ll never leave us. I don’t 
mind a good dog in camp, but we don’t want 
that thing following us. Throw something at 
him, Wade.” 

A lump of clay went hurtling in the direc- 
tion of this apology for a dog. He dodged 
the missile and came nearer. Again and yet 
again Wade aimed at him, each time with the 
same result. At last he came within a few 
feet of them and set up a heart-broken wail. 

“I believe the brute ’s starving,” said Dick. 
“Here, I ’ll try him with a piece of meat.” 

Dick threw a big piece at him, and the dog 
leaped half-way to meet it, snapping his jaws 
with a click. It was so large and he so weak 
that it knocked him over. Together dog and 
meat went rolling down the kopje, until they 
brought up under a milk-bush. 

Struggling to its feet, the brakje seized the 
meat and bounded weakly away out of sight 
among the bushes. 

“Cowardly curs, those. Afraid to eat it in 
sight of us. He ’ll sneak off and gorge him- 
187 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

self. Here ’s hoping he won’t come back and 
attach himself to us permanently.” 

“There ’s one thing sure,” said Wade. “He 
won’t need anything more to eat for a day 
or two.” 

Ten minutes later Dick looked over the 
edge of his third cup of coffee. 

“As I live, he’s there again!” 

Wade laughed. “Did he eat all that meat 
in that space of time? He certainly was low 
in his commissary department. Give him an- 
other; a good, big chunk.” 

Dick threw him a piece, larger than the 
first. The brakje seized it and made off with 
it as before. 

“They say a Kafir can eat his own weight 
in food. If the cur eats that I can testify 
that the dog is the equal to his master.” 

“Look!” said Dick. “There he is again, 
and he looks as thin as ever. I can’t see where 
he puts it. Well, our meal ’s finished, and 
there ’s more meat left. Here, you kopje — 
or brakje — or springbeest; what’s the Kafir 
for ‘catch’?” 


188 


A KAFIR DOG 

A large portion of meat fell at the dog’s 
feet. 

This time he did not touch it. He simply 
sniffed it hungrily, and stood, looking first 
at it and then at the men, with big, piteous 
eyes. 

“Something ’s wrong with him,” said Dick. 
“He ’s trying to tell us. See him quiver all 
over; and I ’ll wager a shilling he’s hungry 
yet. There was a ravenous longing in every 
motion when he smelled that meat. Just 
watch him!” 

The dog gave a quick, short yelp, ran be- 
hind the bushes, then came back, looking up 
expectantly and wistfully. 

He ’s playing some kind of a game, I should 
judge,” said Wade. 

“No, he is n’t. I believe he ’s trying to 
make us follow him.” Dick rose and took a 
few steps toward the animal. 

The brakje gave a joyous bark and bounded 
up the rise, looking back now and then to see 
if he was followed. 

“Come on, fellows. Let ’s pluck the heart 
189 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


out of this mystery,” said Wade, and he and 
Jack followed leisurely. 

Up the kopje to the very summit they fol- 
lowed. Then the dog took a sharp turn to 
the right, plunged down the other side into 
a kloof, and disappeared behind a clump of 
prickly-pear bushes. 

“Some one ’s been here,” said Dick. “Look 
at the prickly-pear skins thrown about. Jove! 
Some one’s here now!” 

The dog was licking the face of a Kafir, 
who lay on the ground motionless. Almost 
as emaciated as the dog, he seemed. Here and 
there on his body were evidences of half-healed 
wounds. One leg was rudely bound with 
leaves and grass, now dried and crackling 
with the heat. All about him lay the cleanly- 
picked bones of small animals and birds, and 
by his limp, claw-like hand lay a dead squirrel 
and the two pieces of meat untouched. 

Brakje looked up into the faces of his relief 
party, to see if they understood. He whined, 
but his master made no sign. 

Jack Aronson stooped over the man and 
brushed away the flies. Then he knelt and 
190 


A KAFIR DOG 

listened, to see if the heart had stopped 
beating. 

“Not dead, but pretty well out of the run- 
ning.’ ’ 

“Think that we can save him?” 

“Perhaps. We can make a try.” 

“What do you think happened?” 

“Don’t know. Fight of some kind. Those 
wounds are torn, not cut. Some animal, 
probably.” 

Wade examined the ground. “Here ’s a 
trail of some kind.” 

“Yes. It looks as if he had crawled some 
distance to get here. Let ’s explore a bit.” 

Jack led the way. The trail was plain. 
The man had evidently dragged himself that 
way. The dried blood still showed here and 
there. 

Not far to find. The lion lay there, ten 
days killed; the flesh all stripped from the 
bones by the vultures and ants. The small 
knife, too, was there still. All around were 
evidences of a fearful struggle. 

“And the Kafir killed him with that!” half 
whispered Dick, “I ’d hate to tackle the 
191 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

brute with a two-edged sword, let alone with a 
dinky knife like that. Let ’s go back and see 
what we can do for that fellow up there. He 
must be worth something, or his dog would n’t 
care for him so much.” 

Gently they examined the man. 

“He is merely suffering from his wounds 
and loss of blood,” said Jack. “He hasn’t 
starved, thanks to that dog of his ; and I ’ve 
a notion that a drink of cool water would go 
a long way toward making him see daylight. 
Jove! that lion nearly finished him. I don’t 
see how the man ever pulled out alive. Here, 
you fellows, lend a hand, and we ’ll get him 
into camp.” 

“Come on, kopje, or whatever you are,” 
said Dick. “You are worth caring for too. 
I ’d be proud to own you myself.” 

In camp Wanya was given water. Drop 
by drop it was forced between his parched lips. 
At last he opened his eyes. “Brakje!” he 
said, and closed them again. 

And Brakje was there — oh, be sure of that! 
— Brakje of the loyal heart. He stood and 
watched the ministrations: when his master 
192 


A KAFIR DOG 


had really come back to life, had eaten and 
drunk all that it was safe to give him, he too 
ate and drank like the starved thing he was. 

Wanya’s wounds were bathed and dressed, 
and on one of the hunters’ horses he was taken 
to Kimberley, and placed in the hospital. 

His iron constitution served him well. In 
three weeks he was well and strong again. He 
proved to be no common Kafir, but was intelli- 
gent above his race, and proud indeed he was 
when he was elected unanimously as beater for 
the party. 

And Brakje? There was no question of 
his position. He was already aide-de-camp to 
Wanya, and in a short time even Jack’s scorn 
for Kafir curs had ceased to exist. As an 
attache of the hunting outfit he proved himself 
invaluable. He had a nose for game and four 
willing feet, an eagerness to be of service and 
an affection for everybody. 

But next to Wanya in Brakje’s heart, Dick 
was enshrined. For Dick had been first to 
understand, and there was no need of speech 
between them. 


193 


ASK-HIM: 

AN INDIAN DOG 


W E reached the old red Line House 
about five in the afternoon of a won- 
derful August day. A little late in the season 
it was for the best fishing, but it was something 
to know that the black flies and mosquitos 
would be thinned out, and that what fishing 
we did would lack this annoyance of the great 
North Woods. 

It was good to leave the dusty C. P. R. at 
the little lumbering village; it was solid com- 
fort to shed the trappings of civilization, and 
settle into serviceable woods togs; it was deli- 
cious to skim over Spider Lake in a “steam 
yacht” that ran by teakettle power, and breathe 
the spicy odors of the pines and balsams on, 
shore, mingled with the reek of old Skipper 
Jack’s oil-can and the blessed aroma of wood 
smoke; it was an experience never to be for- 
194 


AN INDIAN DOG 


gotten, that ten-mile ride in the rickety buck- 
board, over hills of stumps and down dales of 
mud-puddles. 

And here at last I climbed down and 
stretched the kinks out of my arms and legs. 

The Line House stood gaunt and bare in 
the middle of a clearing, around which rose 
fir-clad slopes, with vistas between, blue with 
that wonderful depth of color one sees on a 
very clear day. Its name was due to the fact 
that it was built on the State line, half in 
Maine and half in the Province of Quebec. 
Its fame came down from old smuggling days, 
when its advantageous position made it a 
most convenient place to evade customs. You 
had only to shift your contraband articles 
across the line, and there you were. Now it 
had become a wayside inn for trappers, hun- 
ters, sportsmen, and lumberjacks. 

I elected to stay here for the evening meal, 
after which we would tramp over to Arnold 
Pond, a mile farther on. There we would 
find boats to take us across to the camp which 
was to be our base of supplies for a month. 

On the stoop sat a lad about eleven years 
195 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


of age; one arm around a rickety pillar, the 
other slung across the shoulders of a sober- 
minded, tan-colored dog. The pair had that 
nameless something about them that irresisti- 
bly attracts. 

“Hello, sonny. That your dog?” 

“Dad’s. It ’s the same thing.” 

“What’s his name?” 

“Ask-Him.” 

“Why? He couldn’t answer if I did.” 

“Ha, ha!” laughed the boy. “You ’re 
fooled. Everybody is, first time. It ’s a 
trick name. That ’s really it — just ‘Ask- 
Him’.” 

“Ha, ha!” I chorused amiably. “I cer- 
tainly was fooled. How did he come by such 
a name as that?” 

“Why, you see, he ’s an Injun dog. An old 
trapper gave him to dad. His squaw was sick, 
or something, and dad gave her a dose that 
cured her. The Injun was mighty grateful, 
and about a week after, dad met the whole 
outfit moving, and the squaw was toting the 
papoose and the wigwam poles like she had 
never been sick. The Injun he up and gave 
196 



A sober-minded, tan-colored dog, with that nameless something 
about him that irresistibly attracts 




AN INDIAN DOG 

this dog to dad, for a thank-offering, or some- 
thing.” 

The boy hugged the dog a little closer. 

“And when dad said, ‘What’s his name?’, 
the Injun answered, ‘Ask him. Him heap 
smart beaver dog.’ So dad just called him 
that. He ’s a trick dog, too.” 

This promised to be interesting. I sat 
down on the other side of the dog, who looked 
at me in a dignified way, and then let his gaze 
rove off to the hill-line. On the edge of the 
wood the “lonesome birds” were thrilling the 
air with their long, soft notes. No doubt 
that Ask-Him heard them, and no doubt that 
he heard other and finer sounds that the 
stunted instincts of the human race may not 
fathom. 

“What tricks can he do?” 

“Shake hands, Ask-Him.” 

The dog gravely lifted his paw for me to 
shake; after which a lump of sugar was pur- 
loined from the supper-table, and he was 
induced to hold it on his nose and catch it. 
Then at the words of command he went 
solemnly through all his round of tricks. He 
197 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


fetched and carried, stood on his head, sneezed, 
walked on his hind legs, and ended by saying 
his prayers, with his head bowed over the boy’s 
shoulder. 

When the performance was over he took his 
seat again by the boy. The applause of the 
onlookers did not move him. It was enough 
that he had performed the duty his little mas- 
ter had imposed upon him. Life was evi- 
dently a weighty matter with him. Serious 
and silent he sat there, like the Indians among 
whom he was bred. 

“He ’s more ’n that, and better ’n that.” 

“Indeed? What a remarkable animal! 
What else can he do?” 

“He ’s a beaver dog; and a real one. That 
Injun trained him when he was a puppy, so he 
can smell ’em out anywhere. The Injuns 
trap the beavers for their skins, and Ask-Him 
used to go along and find them. I dunno how 
that Injun ever parted with him. He must 
have been mighty grateful to dad. 

“There ’s dad now. He ’s a surveyor, you 
know.” The boy straightened himself up 
proudly. “I ’m going to be a surveyor when 
198 


AN INDIAN DOG 

I ’ m a man. Dad takes me on little trips like 
the one we ’re doing now. He ’s teaching me 
to box the compass and run out the chain, 
and I ’m going to begin to get altitudes and 
right angles and things pretty soon. I can 
tell you what a hypotenuse is now.” 

“Good! There’s the supper-bell. We 
must go in. I should like to hear more about 
you and your dog later.” 

The boy stepped along by my side. 

“I say, are you going over to Arnold Pond? 
We ’re going to spend the night there. Hey, 
dad, we can all go over to the Pond together. 
I — I don’t know your name — ” 

I told him. 

“Mine ’s Bob Randall, and this is dad, and 
that ’s Jim Pearson, the chain-bearer. We ’re 
a surveyin’ outfit, and Ask-Him ’s the most 
important member.” 

At the table the conversation became gen- 
eral. Bob’s father, Dave Randall, was a tall, 
breezy, refined-looking fellow, with a keen, 
honest blue eye. He had a fund of excellent 
stories at his command and told them in good 
English. Easy it was to see where the boy 
199 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


got his fine, fearless manner, and his unmis- 
takable air of culture. He was a smaller copy 
of the man, and they were evidently great 
chums. 

Supper finished, my guide slipped his 
shoulders into the straps of my pack-basket, 
and we all strolled across the clearing and 
down into the twilight of the pines. Old gray- 
beards, some of them were. This one precious 
spot had not yet been despoiled by the lum- 
bermen of its primeval beauty. Ask-Him 
went ahead, stepping softly, with his nose low. 
Not capering, he. The business of living was 
too important. 

Suddenly he stopped, lowered his nose, 
sniffed, pointed, and was off down the trail, 
moving quickly and stealthily. 

“He ’s scented something,” said Bob to me. 
“Let ’s go ahead and see what it is.” 

Around a bend in the trail we found him, ex- 
cited and eager, with his nose pointing toward 
a clump of fern, and his long, homely tail 
trembling. Bob and I looked carefully. On 
the ground lay a bit of fur, nothing more. 

“Some animal has been killed,” I said. 

200 


AN INDIAN DOG 


“Look again,” whispered Bob. “Close!” 

I leaned over ; two round eyes looked up out 
of the middle of the flat, gray disk, and then I 
saw faintly the outline and tips of two pointed 
ears, laid back so flatly that it was not easy to 
distinguish them. 

“A baby rabbit,” said Bob softly. “His 
mother told him he must n’t move. See here !” 
He stooped over, stroked the soft fur, once, 
twice — then Bunny’s nerve broke, and it 
jumped deeper under the fern and crouched 
again. Ask-Him watched, but made no at- 
tempt to touch it. 

“Why didn’t your dog go for it?” I asked 
as we moved on up the trail. 

“ ’Cause he ’s a beaver dog. He ’s trained 
so. He is n’t a butcher. He ’s just a — what- 
do-you-call — locator. He finds the burrows 
and scents all kinds of game. You see, if a 
dog catches a beaver, likely he ’ll spoil the fur. 
So Ask-Him knows he ’s not to touch.” 

At the landing we found a boat, and my 
guide and the chain-bearer, each with an oar, 
rowed us over to the camp. We shook hands 
with the man and the woman at the cook- 
201 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


house; chose our respective log-cabins; and 
then, while my guide took the boat back to the 
landing for the next comer, Bob, Ask-Him, 
and I in one of the camp boats paddled out on 
the pond in the gathering twilight. 

On all sides down to the very shore rose 
great pines, spruces, and hemlocks, with a 
dark line all around the rim of the pond where 
the deer in the winter months had nibbled 
away all the green twigs as high up as they 
could reach. Ask-Him suddenly began to 
tremble and gaze off across the water, making 
now and then a whining noise, almost a 
whisper. 

“He ’s seeing something. Watch now. 
Keep perfectly still, and look where he does.” 

Through the pale gold of the western re- 
flection we saw a ripple; then a small head 
parted the water silently, making for the shad- 
ows of the shore-line. There was no sound 
anywhere, and we held our breath. 

Suddenly my foot slipped and my boot 
rasped along the bottom of the skiff. We 
heard a heavy thud on the water, and the ani- 
mal was gone. Ask-Him gave me one dis- 
202 


AN INDIAN DOG 


approving glance, and then — splash! — he went 
over the side, heading for the nearest land. 

“That was a beaver,” said Bob. “Didn’t 
you hear his tail slap the water? Ask-Him ’s 
gone to find his burrow. There ’s a big beaver 
dam down at the outlet, and dad says there 
used to be some hutches that they built once 
long ago. But when they made the camp on 
the pond the beavers did n’t like it, and they 
destroyed their houses ; and now they live in 
their burrows on the shore, with their doors 
under water. They feel safer that way, I 
suppose. Ask-Him will find right where that 
one lives. But no one is allowed to kill bea- 
vers here, so that old fellow is safe.” 

Sure enough, the dog did locate the burrow ; 
and it was with difficulty that we found 
him, and persuaded him to return to the 
boat. 

“I ’ll keep hold of him now, so that he can’t 
get out again,” said Bob. “He ’s a wonder- 
ful scenter. He can find a burrow under four 
feet of snow. He scents all kinds of things; 
bears, wolves, lynxes ; and once — it ’s sort of 
long, but I ’d like to tell you. Dad never 
203 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

tells it himself, but he lets me. Would you 
like to hear it? Honest?” 

“Do tell me. The moon is coming up, and 
we need n’t go in quite yet.” 

“Dad ’ll call when it ’s time to turn in. 
Well, it was ’most two years ago. Dad had 
some surveying to do up north of Quebec, and 
he started off with Jim Pearson and two port- 
ageurs to carry the duffel and the canoes, 
’cause it was to be a very long expedition, up 
through the real, wild wilderness. Ask-Him 
went, of course. He always goes. He ’s a 
very val’able member. You see, he knows 
where the game is if they want fresh meat. 

“Now September was a mighty fine month, 
and they kept going and going, and they went 
farther than they planned at first, and they 
got a long ways up in the woods, where the 
ponds have n’t any names, and there are n’t 
any trails, except Indian ones. Then the cold 
weather came, and it was just nipping. 
Everything froze up tight, and the snow came 
very early. But they kept on, because some 
of their work was easier to do when the ponds 
and streams were covered with ice. 

204 


AN INDIAN DOG 


“Nights they used to find a sheltered place 
and put up their duck tent. Dad has a jim- 
dandy little sheet-iron stove that is a ripper 
when it gets going, and they ’d hive up around 
it as warm as toast. Old Ask-Him would go 
to sleep between dad and Jim and he was as 
happy as anything. 

“Once in a while an Indian trapper would 
come along and dad would send a letter down 
to Montmorency : that ’s where we live, and I 
can tell you mother and I would be the glad- 
dest things in Canada when we got those little 
old leaves torn out of his diary. 

“Then there was a long time when we never 
got a word, and mother and I sat around wait- 
ing and worrying. Mother got thin, and she 
used to cry a lot. I saw her once cry right 
into the frying-pan, and the tears sizzled. 
But if she thought I was looking she ’d pretend 
to laugh and talk about what we ’d do when 
dad came back. The last letter we got came 
about Thanksgiving-time, and after that we 
did n’t hear anything more, and we never did 
know about them till they got home, ’way 
along after New Year’s. We came mighty 
205 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


near losing dad that time. If it had n’t been 
for — but that comes farther along. 

“When it got very cold they had to stow the 
canoes and go the rest of the way on foot. 
The portageurs carried the tent and the grub, 
and dad and Jim had the compass and chain. 
It kept getting colder and colder, and after a 
while they had to stop working and make 
camp to keep warm. 

“One morning dad and Jim started out on 
their snow-shoes, with Ask-Him for a scenter, 
to see if they could n’t find a caribou or some- 
thing. They needed some fresh meat to help 
out the grub supply, if they had to stay very 
long. They went an awful long way and 
never found a thing. Then all of a sudden 
the sky got gray, and there came up a terrible 
blizzard; the kind that freezes the tears on 
your face and drives needles into you, and if 
you don’t look out you get frozen stiff. 

“There was only one thing to do. They 
dug a hole in the snow on a slope away from 
the wind, ’way down to the ground, so as to 
make a hearth for their fire. Then they made 
this hole big enough to put in some balsam 
206 


AN INDIAN DOG 


beds, and they roofed it all over with balsam 
boughs, so they were quite snug and cozy, and 
the wind could whistle all it wanted to. They 
stayed two days like that till the blizzard was 
over. The bother was that they did n’t have 
anything to eat; only a few little pieces of 
jerked venison that they had carried for the 
one day’s hunting. 

“When they crawled out the third morning 
the world was all white, without a break ; even 
the trees were great lumps of snow, and there 
was n’t a track anywhere. In the storm they 
had gotten turned around, and they did n’t 
know which way to go to find the portageurs. 
The compass was at the main camp, and the 
only way they could tell north from south was 
by the moss on the tree-trunks. They would 
just have to let the portageurs find them. 
They all hunted everywhere, but there was n’t 
the teeniest sign of even a squirrel. Ask- 
Him went around smelling into the wind for 
miles, but it was just like all the world was 
dead: that was the time he came so near get- 
ting his toes frozen. They thawed him out 
just in time. 


207 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


“Well, they kept getting hungrier and hun- 
grier. Dad and Jim took in their belts till 
there were n’t any more holes, and Ask-Him 
looked thinner than an old starved wolf. I 
don’t know how many days they went hungry. 
Dad never could tell; he lost count: but they 
were pretty near the jumping-off place, I can 
tell you.” 

The lad hugged the wet coat of Ask-Him 
closer to his. 

“Then one day Jim told dad that they ’d 
have to eat little old Ask-Him to save their 
own lives. And dad said he ’d as soon eat 
Jim, or have Jim eat him. If it came to a 
question of starving to death, they could just 
starve, but Ask-Him was one of the ‘boys,’ 
and dad had n’t come to be a cannibal yet. 
Jim used all the suasion he had. But dad 
just told him to go chase himself, and he sat 
down in the snow-hole with his hands hanging 
over his knees, looking at the fire; and he 
would n’t speak another word. 

“Then Jim he got desperate, and he told 
dad he ’d just go out and see if he could n’t 
find a mink or a muskrat or something on the 
208 


AN INDIAN DOG 

other side of the hill they were burrowed into. 
He called Ask-Him, and they went off with 
the gun and left dad alone ; he ’d gotten too 
weak to hunt any more. 

“Jim was praying all the way that some- 
thing would turn up, but there was n’t a track 
or a sign of game, and no hope of finding any. 
He went off an awful long way, so dad 
would n’t hear anything. It was just a ques- 
tion to Jim of whether all three of them should 
starve together or that Ask-Him should die, 
and he and dad should live.” 

A sob broke in the boy’s throat, and he 
looked straight into the wise eyes of the dog. 

“Ask-Him, old fellow, Jim was going to 
kill you, so ’s dad and he could eat you and 
keep alive theirselves a little longer.* But he 
did n’t; he did n’t! He called you up to him 
away out there in the wilderness, and he put 
his finger on the trigger of his gun, and tried 
to pull it ; and he could n’t, he trembled so. 
And he knew if he did n’t do it pretty soon he 
would never have strength to do it at all. 

“And then he aimed again, and he looked 
along the sights on his gun-barrel at you ; and 
209 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


there you were, sniffing, just sniffing at the 
ground, and paying no attention to Jim at all. 

“And then — and then you began digging 
with your old lean paws, and every little while 
you would almost tumble over, you were so ex- 
cited and so weak. But you wabbled along 
and kept digging deeper and deeper. 

“And then Jim threw down the gun, 
dropped on his knees, and helped you dig; 
’cause he knew you had scented something. 
And he just prayed that you was n’t going to 
be fooled, and he dug and dug — ” 

Bob turned to me with shining eyes. “And 
what do you think they found? A cache! A 
big cache left there by some Injun. There 
were pork, beans, peas, flour, tea — enough to 
keep ’em for a long time. 

“Well, maybe Jim didn’t give Ask-Him a 
good hugging ! And he gave him some of the 
pork — in little pieces, so he would n’t choke 
himself. Then he ate some himself, to make 
strength to get the things back to camp. He 
toted the grub back with him, and when they 
got to the snow-hole dad was still sitting there, 
not sensing anything. And Jim yelled in his 
210 


AN INDIAN DOG 


ear: “Dave! We’re saved! Ask-Him, 
little old Ask-Him did it.” 

“They had more than enough to last until 
the portageurs came up and found them. And 
when they went away they took things from 
their own duffel and filled the Injun’s cache 
fuller than ever, and they left a big order for 
him at the first trading post they passed on 
their way back. 

“The night when they came home mother 
fainted away; and when she came to dad had 
her in his arms and Jim was pouring water on 
her head, and Ask-Him was barking like mad, 
’cause he did n’t know what they were doing 
to her. He likes mother a heap.” 

“Bob! Time to turn in!” 

Dave Randall’s mellow voice echoed across 
the water. The boy unbuttoned his coat, put 
it half around Ask-Him, who was shivering, 
and silently I paddled the boat up the silvery 
moon-trail to the little wharf. 


211 


JERRY: A SEA-DOG OF THE 
CALIFORNIA COAST 


“ T ’LL never be able to take that walk around 
A the summit, Carol; my nerves are com- 
pletely upset. I ’ll be glad enough to get 
back to Detroit again where things are flat 
and comfortable. This California scenery is 
too much on end to suit me.” 

“Oh, Mother, it is so beautiful! Think of 
those wonderful pines and redwoods in the 
Muir Wood; and then think about those little 
trees we call woods on Belle Isle! I just love 
it here.” 

“Well, maybe you do ; you are young. One 
can be enthusiastic when one is fourteen years 
old, and thin. All I can think of is that little 
crooked railway that ties itself into double 
bow-knots all up and down the mountain. 
I ’m sorry I came. And we ’ve got to tobog- 
gan eight miles more to get back to Mill Val- 
212 


A CALIFORNIA SEA-DOG 


ley, down those awful curves and precipice 
places, with nothing but one man and a brake 
between us and perdition*. What would hap- 
pen, I ’d like to know, if he should forget to 
set it, or if the thing should break? I declare, 
I Ve almost a mind to walk back.” 

“Why, dearie, Mother, it is just as safe as 
any railroad.” 

“Well, you may like Mount Tamalpais if 
you want to, but I stay in San Francisco until 
we go south. And that ’s all hills, too. I 
lose my breath every time I go shopping. If 
ever I get down this mountain alive, I ’ll never 
risk my bones again on anything but plain 
steam-cars.” 

“You won’t mind if I go around the top, 
will you. Mother?” 

“Oh, I suppose you ’ll have to. But do be 
careful! Don’t go near the edge, and shut 
your eyes when you look down !” 

Mrs. Ballin, tourist and pleasure-seeker, 
settled back in an easy-chair at the inn on the 
summit of Mount Tamalpais, making sure that 
she was where she could not see the edges of 
things, and proceeded to calm her feelings 
213 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


with a soothing nap. Carol wandered out 
and let the soft wind toss her hair and rumple 
her petticoats, while she looked out over the 
wonderful landscape that lay below and all 
around. 

“Just like a big raised map,” she said aloud; 
“San Francisco Bay and the islands and capes 
and hills and things. Some day I ’m going to 
live out here. Mill Valley would be a fine 
place. It ’s grand down there in the pines, 
and when I want real air I can pop up here, 
where it ’s all air and blue sky and brown earth 
and green bushes.” 

The girl wandered off up the path that led 
to the left around the rocky summit. At a 
wooden bench by the side of the path she 
stopped and seated herself to take in the 
beauty of the scene. Her heart sang like a 
bird on a June morning for the sheer joy of 
living and seeing all this from her first moun- 
tain-top. She broke a twig from a m’anzanita 
bush that grew at her side, just to feel the 
company of its green leaves in her fingers, and 
leaned back against the rock, swinging her 
happy feet and letting her idle glance follow 
214 


A CALIFORNIA SEA-DOG 


the flight of a solitary bird dipping and ris- 
ing as if he rode on billows of air. 

“You like it?” 

So engrossed was she with the ecstatic soar- 
ing of the bird that she had not noticed an el- 
derly man who had seated himself at the other 
end of the bench. Now she looked at him. 
There was something about his solid carriage 
that commanded respect, something in his gray 
curling beard and his clear blue eyes that gave 
her confidence. A line from her favorite poet 
(she was studying English literature) flew to 
her head, and she almost said it aloud as she 
looked at him: 

Eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot stars. 

Instead, however, of repeating this or an- 
swering his question, she uttered the thought 
that had come with the verse : 

“You are a sailor, sir?” 

The man laughed. “How did you guess, 
little lady?” 

“My uncle is a captain on the Lakes. He 
has eyes like yours.” 

“A sailor does get a certain expression; 
that ’s a fact. Comes from watching for 
215 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


rocks off shore and squalls off sea. Jerry 
here, now; he ’s got it too — the sea-look.” 

For the first time Carol now saw lying at 
the end of the bench an Irish setter, elderly 
too. At the sound of his name he rose to a sit- 
ting posture and looked up affectionately at 
the man. He was a fine specimen of his 
breed. His long, narrow head was broad in 
the forehead and well arched in the cranium; 
his ears were long, pendulous, and silky; his 
coat, a mahogany color, was soft and wavy; 
and his whole being bespoke kindness, good 
sense, and love. His eyes — yes, there was in 
them that same long focus, but the brown 
was dimming, as if already he needed no sharp 
vision to see the end of his voyage. 

“Oh, is he your dog? I saw him on the car 
coming up. He ’s old, is n’t he?” 

“Yes, yes; he is old, as dogs go. But he ’s 
seen life, and taken it as it came, like a man; 
and that ’s more than some of us do.” 

The sailor looked out over the brown hills 
for a moment and then went back to his first 
question : 

“You like it here?” 


216 




Jerry is thirteen years old now — old, as dogs go; but he’s an old 

sea-dog, and he ’s seen life 




' - 










. 




















f ' 3 







































































































A CALIFORNIA SEA-DOG 

“Oh, so much! It ’s all so new and differ- 
ent. Everything is so wide : you can see miles ; 
and it ’s all blue sky up here, and the country 
is so soft and brown and hazy, and over there 
is a bit of the ocean — just a streak beyond 
the hills — as blue as blue. And right down 
there over San Francisco and the Golden Gate 
it is all a floor of fog, just like rolls* of cotton- 
batting.’ ’ 

“Yes, I know. I know the Pacific in sun- 
shine and in fog. It is queer about California 
fogs. One side of the bay will be all buried 
in the mist, and the other out in full sunlight. 
Something about the coast formation does it. 
And they come and go — suddenly.” 

The sailor sat still for a moment. Carol’s 
gaze wandered back to the bird that was now 
soaring in great flights, resting on its pinions 
so long that it seemed as if it must fall. Then, 
with a rhythmic beat of its wings, up it sailed 
again, almost out of sight into the ether. 

The man pointed with his finger to the 
northwest, and the dog at his side seemed to 
follow and locate the very spot that his mas- 
ter indicated, 

217 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


“Do you see that bit of blue there? Jerry 
could tell you something about those waters. 
We ’ve sailed them together many a time; and 
once* — ” 

“Is Jerry a sea-dog?” 

“Yes, he is that. We ’ve been sea-dogs to- 
gether. Out by that bit of blue, now, there ’s 
a point of land; a cape, like; and offshore are 
some bird rocks — you ’ve seen some of them 
along the coast? No? Well, there are cor- 
morants that come there; and on a bright day 
you can see them on those rocks, rows of them, 
with their long black necks stretched out all 
in the same direction, watching for fish. And 
hundreds of gulls, too, flapping around. In- 
shore on one side of the point it is sandy beach, 
and on the other it is rocky. In fine wea- 
ther the waves go sliding in and out, treach- 
erous and wicked-looking, with trails of foam 
like snakes on their backs. Beyond the bird 
rocks are some other rock’s that can only be 
seen at low tide. When there ’s a storm at 
sea the waves pile up and break over them with 
a sound like cannon thundering; and just as 
cruel, if a ship should get sucked in there. 

218 


A CALIFORNIA SEA-DOG 


And out beyond these there are still other 
rocks that are never seen. It looks fine 
from here,, but we Ve seen it close to, Jerry 
and I ; aye, and felt it, what ’s more !” 

“Oh, have you really been in a shipwreck?” 
Carol caught her breath and clasped her hands 
together. 

“Aye. ’Twas the City of Chester. She 
went down off those rocks on as pretty a night 
as you ever saw. And she ’s lying there now, 
if the storms have n’t taken her further out 
to Davy Jones’ submarine shipyard.” 

“Tell me about it, please.” Carol went 
over to the dog, and sat down cross-legged by 
his side. As if he knew a friend at sight, 
Jerry laid his nose on her knee and continued 
looking out toward the bit of blue water. 

“Well, let me see. It was thirteen years 
ago; Jerry was a month-old puppy two years 
before that, when Cap’n Wallace brought 
him aboard; and from that time until she went 
under, Jerry was ship-dog to the City of Ches- 
ter. She ran on the Coast Line from ’Frisco 
to Vancouver, and was as plucky a little 
steamer as ever lived. I was first mate on 
219 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


her, and I helped train Jerry. He was a clip- 
per in those days, and he navigated by his own 
chart entirely. Anything that was n’t ship- 
shape he ’d find and worry ; so it behooved us 
all, captain and crew, to keep our berths tidy. 

“Grow? He grew fifteen knots an hour 
that first year, and everybody got to know him 
all along the line. When we hove to in the 
slip there wasn’t a longshoreman anywhere 
but would yell, ‘Hello, Jerry!’ the minute they 
saw his red head over the hand-rail. When 
work was n’t pressing, they would amuse 
themselves throwing things into the water for 
him to bring in. There was n’t anything he 
wouldn’t tackle, even an empty barrel, and 
he ’d tow it into port somehow. He was al- 
ways right at the gangplank when it was let 
down, and he superintended the going ashore 
of the passengers and the coming aboard of 
the new ones. He never let his eye off the 
freight till the stevies had run it all off and 
stowed the next batch in the hold. 

“He loved the winch. I set him on a bale of 
hay once when it was being lowered, and he 
went down into the hold with his paws clutched 
220 


A CALIFORNIA SEA-DOG 


into the wires and looking worried and puz- 
zled. But he came up on a trunk the next 
trip, with an expression like a seraph. After 
that you could n’t keep him away when he 
heard the hoisting-engine start up. Many a 
ride he had after that, on things that gave him 
a foothold. 

“The whole crew loved him; didn’t they, 
Jerry? And he loved the crew. The cap’n 
and I were close-hauled and running even for 
his first favor ; after us came the cook, who had 
a hold on his heart through his bread-basket. 
Elsewhere honors were even. Many a stormy 
night he walked the bridge with the cap’n 
or me, according to the watch, only turning in 
when we changed off, or one or the other of 
us went below to get a cup of coffee from the 
cook’s galley, or a hot — lemonade. 

“All the passengers took notice of him, and 
those who made the trip often grew to be quite 
friends with him. One galoot tried to coax 
him off. I was watching unbeknown, ready 
to pounce if need be. But no ! The City of 
Cluster was Jerry’s ship, and its crew were 
his people. He had no particular use for 
221 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


landlubbers, except to pass the time of day 
with them. He ’d go ashore with Cap’n 
Wallace or me, however, and would quite 
enjoy a little run up Geary Street, or Market, 
or along the docks. Sometimes when we were 
tied up for loading and I had shore leave I 
used to bring him up here ; and those were the 
times when he nearly went crazy with joy, 
racing through the scrub and chasing squirrels 
and butterflies, and rolling on his back in the 
dirt. He certainly did enjoy a touch of real 
freedom, and it ’s because of those times that 
I bring him up here occasionally. He ’s 
too old now to run, but he likes to look off 
across the hills toward that strip of blue. I 
think he dreams of the City of Chester and 
his life there. 

“It was in March, 19 — ; Jerry was two 
years old, I remember, and a beauty. You 
can see, if you are a judge of dogs, that he 
has all the points. There came aboard at 
Vancouver a young lady bound for ’Frisco. 
Her name was Miss Frances Dewing. About 
your size, I should think she was, though 
maybe three or four years older. You made 
222 


A CALIFORNIA SEA-DOG 


me think of her as I hove alongside. Reckon 
that ’s why I spoke to you. Evidently she 
had a love for dogs ; and I think there ’s some- 
thing wrong with any one who has n’t. She 
took to J erry like a connoisseur, and he knew 
her for a friend and a good fellow. She was 
the only passenger I ever saw him regularly 
make up to. They made a fine voyage of it 
together, and when we reached ’Frisco it was 
a toss-up whether he would go with her or stay 
with us. Cap’n Wallace gave him the 
chance, just to see, *and it finally ended in his 
leaving her carriage and walking up the gang- 
plank of his own accord. But he sat on the 
deck and howled for about five minutes after 
she had gone. I reckon the cap’n would n’t 
really have let Jerry go, and I do know he was 
tickled at the way he chose to stay with us who 
had brought him up and educated him.” 

“Did he ever see the girl again?” Carol’s 
eyes were bright and eager as she looked up at 
the sailor man. 

“Yes, indeed, and that ’s the very story I ’m 
coming to. 

“She was down at ’Frisco to do some Easter 
223 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


shopping, and then she spent a week at Palo 
Alto; and in April she came aboard again to 
make the trip home. Jerry nearly wriggled 
out of his skin with joy when he saw Miss 
Dewing again; and she shook hands with me 
and the cap’n as if we were old friends. 

“We were due to leave port at 8 p.m., and it 
was as fine an evening as ever was. It was 
warm, hardly a breath of wind, and the bay 
was like glass; there was a full moon coming 
up over behind Oakland, and not a cloud any- 
where. When we swung out through the 
Golden Gate we met some rollers coming in 
that told us there had been a storm somewhere 
off at sea. They were high enough so we had 
to shut the port-holes to larboard, but on the 
starboard side everything was as cozy as a back 
parlor. All the passengers that had any sea- 
legs at all were cuddled about watching the 
moon and this old Tamalpais, but there are 
always a few who take to their berths first 
thing, on principle. We were steaming along 
in fine fettle. Miss Dewing was leaning 
against the rail, watching the shore, when 
Jerry and I strolled along. She called to him, 
224 


A CALIFORNIA SEA-DOG 


and he went over to be patted ; and I followed. 
We stood there, and she asked me a lot of ques- 
tions about the faiiy gardens under seas in 
these parts. Ever been out in the glass-bot- 
tomed boats at Monterey or Catalina? No? 
Well, don’t go back East without doing that. 
It ’s another world. The waters along these 
California shores are washing over a wonder 
of palm groves and waving kelp with big 
round shiny heads, and every kind and color 
of seaweed. And there are purple and crim- 
son sea-urchins, pretty enough to pet, if they 
were n’t so prickly ; and starfish and anemones 
and abalones, and big fishes sailing along slow, 
waving their tails as if they were seaweed, too. 
I ’ll bet anything, if we could look down into 
some of the places where they haven’t been 
scared away, we ’d see shoals and shoals of 
mermaids and mermen, too, disporting them- 
selves, as happy as the fishes. 

“Well, I was telling Miss Dewing all about 
these things when I saw some long gray fin- 
gers beginning to reach up across the sky, 
out of the sou west. Then whole handfuls 
came sweeping up ; and in next to no time the 
225 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


moon and the land were gone, and we were 
lost in one of those sudden low fogs that come 
up out of nowhere along the coast. So thick 
it was you could see where your breath made 
a hole in it. It came so quickly that the pas- 
sengers stopped talking and left their mouths 
hanging open. It was as if we had been shut 
off from the whole of creation, swaying there, 
mid-seas, on those long, slow rollers. 

“Our visible points of reckoning were cut 
off without a warning, and we were none too 
far from shore. Cap’n Wallace rang or- 
ders to the engine-room to slow down, and the 
bo’sun started to take soundings. In a minute 
the for’ard watch shouted out, ‘Breakers to 
starboard,’ and the ship was swung a bit to 
port. We were just off the bird rocks when 
the fog closed in, and had been running 
rather close to shore to gain time in the fine 
weather. 

“Just that little minute when we lost our 
bearings did the mischief. Before we could 
get out of our gait there was a lurch and a 
tearing sound down in the ‘innards’ of the ship, 
and then she righted herself, but with a list as 
226 


A CALIFORNIA SEA-DOG 


if she was nursing a wound. One of those 
submerged rocks had stabbed her. 

“Then for a minute a lunatic asylum was n’t 
in it. The passengers all came shrieking to 
know what had happened, and the cap’n left 
me in command on deck while he went below 
to see what had really been done. She had 
slipped clear of whatever hit her, and when 
the cap’n came up he looked mighty grave. 
He said to me, slow and quiet: 

“ ‘Get out the life-belts and clear away the 
boats, quick!’ 

“In a minute the whistle was shrieking 
harder than the fog-horn, and rockets were 
shooting up; there wasn’t any wireless then, 
but we did the best we could. Land was near 
and the lanes of oversea travel not many miles 
away. Help would come soon. 

“And we needed it soon. There was a hole 
stove in the starboard for’ard keel that meant 
about one hour left to us; barely that. The 
cap’n and I did what we could to keep the pas- 
sengers quiet, and they acted better than some 
would. But there were things done that night 
that any man or woman ought to be ashamed 
227 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

of, and would have been if they had kept their 
heads. The life-belts didn’t go around — 
steamers were n’t fitted up as well as they are 
since the Titanic disaster. Some people 
grabbed from others, and there was fighting at 
the boats, which it took the cap’n and me and 
the clerk and the head steward to put a stop 
to, so we could load in the women and children. 

“As the last boat — we had only four — was 
being swung off the davits, I saw Miss Dewing 
standing watching them, very quiet. 

“‘Quick!’ I yelled. ‘There’s just room!’ 
They were helping in a little bride, who was 
sobbing because her husband could n’t go. 
There was one more place, and I started to 
lift Miss Dewing in, but she stepped back and 
said: 

“ ‘Let that little wife have her husband. 
I can swim, and I am used to cold water.’ 

“In spite of my arguments, she refused, and 
I saw her draw herself up and look off into 
the mist, calm and quiet. 

“As they lowered away, a man came rushing 
from the companionway, stark mad with fear. 
He tried to leap into the boat, which was 
228 


A CALIFORNIA SEA-DOG 


already full to the limit. The cap’n grabbed 
him amidships and there was a struggle. The 
man fought like a wild animal. Before any 
one could slip a hand to stop him, both he and 
the cap’n were over the side, still struggling. 
I saw them when they came to the surface; 
saw the crazy man strike the cap’n a blow 
that knocked him senseless, and he fell clear 
and sank, and we never saw him again. 

“Then I knew that the command of the 
ship must fall to me: and whatever happened, 
I was cap’n until she went down — not that 
I cared for the promotion coming in just that 
way. The boats were clear now, and the 
Chester was settling fast. People with life- 
belts and anything they could find were leap- 
ing over the side, to get away from the suction. 
We could hear the faint sound of a whistle out 
of the murk, far away. Something was com- 
ing to our assistance, but it would be too late 
for some. 

“All this time Jerry had been running up 
and down, as excited as any one, and trying to 
understand what the trouble was. He ran 
from man to man of the crew, then to me 
229 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


again; and finally, when the boats were all 
gone, he found Miss Dewing standing very 
still by the rail. Seeing him, she stooped and 
kissed him, and put her hand on his head, as 
if he was a comfort to her. I hustled around 
and found an extra life-belt and stepped up 
and told her to put it on. 

“ ‘You ’d better jump,’ I said, ‘and get 
clear of the ship. She ’ll be under in ten min- 
utes. Drop your shoes and your heavy petti- 
coats.’ 

“This she did as calmly as if she were going 
in swimming; then, with a clear jump, as if she 
were used to it, she was gone. I could see her 
striking out with slow, even strokes away from 
the ship and into the fog. 

“Jerry looked up at me, and would have 
gone over after her; but I said, — selfish, I 
think now, — ‘Jerry, old man, we ’re in com- 
mand; we stand by the ship and go down to- 
gether.’ 

“We were alone now, and the deck was 
almost on a level with the water. It ’s a 
queer feeling one has, standing so still and so 
near death. It ’s a lonesome feeling, too. 

230 


A CALIFORNIA SEA-DOG 


And yet I thought then, we have to go alone 
anyhow, and what better and cleaner place 
than the old Pacific? It was good to have 
Jerry there, though, I can tell you; just to 
feel his old red muzzle in my hand heartened 
me. 

“Then all at once the Chester gave a curi- 
ous shake, a tremble, like; hoisted her stem; 
and slid to her everlasting grave, down in the 
kelp gardens. 

“Jerry and I went down in the suck, and 
I was whirled over and over and inside out 
and upside down till my breath was fairly 
gone; and finally, in a fountain of bubbles, I 
popped up, gasping and spluttering. When 
I got my breath back I saw through the mist, 
not far away (there was light enough from the 
moon above the fog), old Jerry, shaking the 
water out of his eyes, and settling into a stroke. 
Then I made out, here and there, gray dots. 
There were dozens of people all struggling 
in the water, and such cries! God! I never 
want to hear them again! Now and then one 
would gasp and go under. I lighted on a 
bench that had come up, and pushed it along 
231 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


to where two or three people were about ex- 
hausted, and told them to hold on till help 
came. Then I said to Jerry, who was swim- 
ming alongside; 

“ ‘Go find Miss Dewing.’ 

“Instantly he turned, and headed off in a 
different direction. I followed, for I had a 
feeling that he would find her. By this time 
I had my senses, so I realized that the noise 
that had been in my ears ever since I came 
up was the blast of a steamer’s whistle; and 
in a space of time that seemed like an eternity, 
but was really very short, a great hull loomed 
out of the fog. The Oceanic it was who heard 
us, bound for Honolulu, and a sweep of search- 
light crept over the water where we were 
huddled. Then the boats, already lowered, 
dropped into the sea and darted toward us. 
The fog was clearing now, so they could see 
us ; and one by one the poor, chilled, shivering, 
exhausted things were picked up. Some were 
dead and floating in their life-belts; others 
just alive. Nowhere could I see Jerry. 

“All at once some one cried from the deck 
232 


A CALIFORNIA SEA-DOG 


of the Oceanic . ‘Look! There ’s a dog; save 
him, too.’ 

“I turned my head, and saw, on the crest 
of a long swell, Jerry, old Jerry, towing some- 
thing that he held tightly in his teeth. It 
was Miss Dewing’s little red sweater; and 
little Miss Dewing herself was inside it, but 
unconscious. He never let go till he was 
alongside the life-boat and they had lifted her 
in. Then one of the men reached and pulled 
him in, too, and pretty soon they had us all, — 
all who were still on top, — and we were taken 
aboard the Oceanic and rubbed and dosed 
with hot drinks and rolled in blankets, till 
such of us as pulled through had got to be 
human beings once more. 

“And that ’s the end of the story.” 

Carol slipped her arm over the old dog’s 
neck, and sat silent a moment. 

“What became of Miss Dewing?” 

“Up in Vancouver. Married one of the 
survivors, and has three fine children. The 
oldest is a girl almost your size. She begged 
hard for Jerry, Miss Dewing did; and I put 
233 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


it up to him, as his own master. And he 
chose — me again. It ’s a life on the ocean 
wave for Jerry. I ’ve been cap’n of my 
own ship since then, for ten years; and every 
time we run in to Vancouver, I go to call on 
the little lady. It was Christmas dinner last 
year, and it ’s to be Thanksgiving this fall, if 
we can make it. When I retire I Ve prom- 
ised to run into harbor there. And Jerry — ” 

“Yes,” said Carol softly, “and Jerry?” 

“Jerry will be sailing the uncharted ocean 
then. I Ve promised him a burial at sea, with 
honors — where the Chester sank — over there 
in that bit of blue.” 

“Carol! Carol! Come back. It is time to 
start.” 

“That is mother calling. Thank you for 
the story. I won’t forget it. Yes, Mother, 
I’m coming. Good-by! Good-by, Jerry!” 

The bird in the air was not alone now. 
There were two, wheeling and calling to each 
other. Now they dipped down swiftly, and 
disappeared in the shadows of a grove of live- 
oaks. 


234 


TOM: A DOG OF THE 
EASTERN STATES 


W HEN Tom first came to Mr. Allison’s 
he was a little, black, curly-haired 
puppy, without a hint of white on his whole 
coat. His tail was not so plumy then, but it 
gave good promise, even in those days, of 
being his glory. You would never have 
dreamed that he would grow to weigh a hun- 
dred pounds or more, as he does now. 

He gave promise, too, of being a great 
many things. He was as full of life as a pod 
is of peas, fairly overflowing with wriggling 
activity. The children, Don and Mary, at- 
tempted to keep him in the house for their 
very own when he was small, but he set his tiny 
teeth into everything in sight and played such 
havoc with the window-curtains and rugs that 
they were finally compelled to turn him over 
to Amos, the hired man; for he was versed in 
dog-lore, and able the better to train him. 

285 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

Amos, it must be confessed, plotted for his 
favor from the beginning. He knew that 
there is no one in the world so safe to tell your 
secrets to, so charitable to your shortcomings, 
so ready in sympathy for your troubles, as a 
dog. So when the puppy made mincemeat of 
the upholstering on the drawing-room sofa 
and was given to the tender mercies of the 
grizzled old servant, Amos looked very serious ; 
but in his heart of hearts he blessed the un- 
fortunate sofa, and carried the winsome scape- 
grace off to the barn. 

“Now, Tom, you little villain, I ’m not 
going to punish you one mite. Instead I ’m 
going to give you something "of your own to 
cut your baby teeth on. Lord knows you ’ve 
got to cut ’em somehow. Now, this here bit 
of old harness is just the ticket, and it ’s yours , 
and the rest of the straps and things lying 
around are Mr. Allison’s. And when this is 
all chewed up, you can come to me for some- 
thing else. Now mind!” 

Amos dropped an old bridle on the floor 
near by and watched with one eye. The 
puppy settled down to his own strap, and in 
236 


A DOG OF THE EASTERN STATES 


due time it was reduced to its component 
atoms. Amos went out to attend to some other 
duties; when he returned the bridle lay un- 
touched, and Tom sidled up to appeal for 
more strap. He seemed to catch the spirit of 
“thine and mine, ,, and never again destroyed 
anything that he did not know was his. 

An old broken saddle was the joy of his 
young life. It took him some time to obliter- 
ate its shape and comeliness. In fact, he was 
almost over the destructive age before he got 
all the buckles loose and the tough leather torn 
to tatters. When the horsehair stuffing was 
scattered to the four winds, and the last bit 
of wood and iron unscrewed and taken apart, 
Tom looked up from the wreck with the joy 
of a duty well done. 

He never had a whipping, and never needed 
one. If Amos accidentally trod on his tail, 
he would wag it to show that there were no 
hard feelings; if his paw was stepped on, Tom 
held it up to be coddled. It was curious that 
he was not spoiled, but a thing that is solid 
all through can’t be spoiled. The whole fam- 
ily hung on his eyelids. 

237 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


Don and Mary looked upon Tom as their 
own, and with Amos to help, he was taught 
many tricks. He seemed to learn them just 
by looking at you. He would fetch anything 
Don threw for him, on land or in the water. 
Don would throw a stone in the pond, and he 
would go in and fetch the identical stone. 
Once, however, the stone Don threw was so 
small that Tom could not find it. He stayed 
down so long that even Amos became fright- 
ened. At last he came up and looked at Don, 
as if to say, “No use.” Then down he went 
again, and came out with the biggest stone 
that he could possibly carry, and laid it at 
Don’s feet, looking so sheepish that everybody 
laughed. But Tom had to be comforted, for 
he was ashamed at his failure. 

But games were not all of life to Tom. As 
he grew to dog’s estate, he proved himself 
helpful in many ways. When he was about 
a year old Amos handed him the basket con- 
taining Mr. Allison’s lunch. It was some- 
times sent to his office in the village, when he 
was too busy to come home. “Tom,” said 
Amos, “take Mr. Allison’s dinner to him, and 
238 



He never had a whipping, and he never needed one; the whole 
family hung on his eyelids 








































































































































































A DOG OF THE EASTERN STATES 

mind you don’t eat it yourself, nor drop it. 
Take it to Mr. Allison.” 

Tom looked Amos in the eye, keenly and 
understanding^. Then he clinched his teeth 
in the basket-handle, turned tail, and trotted 
off down the street. It was not far, about 
half a mile. Amos followed to see if he had 
really understood, but Tom went so rapidly 
that he was out of sight long before Amos had 
turned the last corner. There he met the dog 
coming back, but he did not stop to greet 
Amos. Right past he went, and straight 
home to Mrs. Allison, to whom his master had 
charged him to deliver a note. 

After that he always went with the lunch. 
Amos followed a few times, and never but 
once did Tom set it down. On this occasion, 
just before he turned into Main Street he saw 
a dog-fight in progress. There was a ring of 
little hoodlums, and in the center a mongrel 
bull was tackling a fox-terrier about half his 
size. It was not an equal fight, and it never 
should have been allowed; but those soulless 
imps were whooping and yelling in unholy 
glee. The bull had the fox by the throat, and 
239 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


was choking his life out. It was not fair play. 
Amos started on a run to stop the tragedy; 
but Tom was ahead, and he jumped into the 
thick of it. He caught that mongrel bull and 
thrashed daylight into him ; and the bull 
crawled off limping, with his tail between his 
legs like the cur he was. 

Amos wound up the affair with a tongue- 
lashing for the imps; and when he had seen 
that the fox was coming to and able to get to 
his feet, he looked for Tom. But Tom was 
already at Mr. Allison’s office, carrying the 
basket as if nothing at all had happened. 

Every morning Tom met the letter-carrier 
half-way; and when there were letters, he 
would come tearing back to Mrs. Allison, and 
give them to her. But if there were none, he 
would drag his feet home as if they were shod 
with lead. 

Every evening he would race to the post- 
office as soon as the train came in, to be the 
first to get the paper. The post-master never 
kept Tom waiting, and he would be back on 
the porch before any one would believe it 
possible. I said every night — no, not quite*. 

240 


A DOG OF THE EASTERN STATES 

Sundays at the same hour he would lie as 
peacefully on the porch as the birds in their 
little nests, and Mr. Allison could say “Paper” 
to him as many times as he liked. Tom would 
simply look at him out of the comer of his 
eye until his master was fairly ashamed of 
trying to deceive a dog who apparently was 
the more intelligent of the two. 

His great delight was to assist Amos in 
driving the cows to pasture and back. Tom 
watched every move that Amos made, until 
he had mastered the whole method. Then 
one morning he astonished the old man by 
opening a gate himself. He did this from 
the inside, pushing back the bolt, and throwing 
his weight on the cross-bar. After that Amos 
taught him to open it from the other side. In 
a week he had learned to jump up, put his 
paw over the bar, and pull the bolt. Then he 
would poke his nose through the crack, 
and wriggle until he could swing the gate 
open. 

After that he had things his own way, going 
and coming, and Amos had only to potter 
along and enjoy the sunset. 

241 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


Then one day Amos was busy in the stable 
with a sick horse, and he said to Tom : 

“Run along, Tom, and get the cows.” 

Tom waved his tail understanding^, and 
was off. When Amos came out and looked 
across the meadow, there was Tom, coming 
with the cattle. There was a place, too, 
where a length of fence was down between 
the lane and the corn, and the cows would fain 
have turned in and helped themselves to a 
juicy ear or two. But no: Tom herded them 
past, not giving them the ghost of a chance. 
He had left the gate into the cow-yard open, 
and while Amos watched, those cows were 
driven in, and Tom shut the gate after them. 

After that farming was easy for Amos, and 
as long as Tom enjoyed it, why not? Amos 
would say: “Tom, go and get Frank,” and 
Tom was off, hot-foot to the pasture, where he 
would pick out the big carriage-horse, and 
drive him up to the stable. If Amos told him 
to bring Pet, up came the little mare. There 
was no longer any bothersome chasing around 
the lot, with a fight to get the bridle on, just 
242 


A DOG OF THE EASTERN STATES 


to see the horse dodge and turn up at the far 
end of the inclosure. Tom corralled them, 
and the rest was easy. 

Mrs. Allison never could have brought up 
her family without Tom. He was nurse- 
maid in extraordinary to Don and Mary. 
After the baby came the busy mother had little 
time to follow the older ones around, and one 
day she said, “Tom, keep an eye on Don and 
Mary.” 

He never left them. If they went near the 
well, it was “No, no!” Tom was in between. 
If Don climbed a tree, he waited underneath, 
as if he expected to catch him if he fell. 
Whatever they did, they had to answer to 
Tom. 

One day, when Don was about seven and 
Mary four, the children, without consulting 
their mother, planned a little expedition to the 
woods. The nuts were falling, and the temp- 
tation was great. Don laid in a store of 
cookies from the jar in which Mrs. Allison 
kept a harmless between-meal variety. Thus 
provisioned, with his pockets full and more in 
243 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


Mary’s sunbonnet, off they went. Tom was 
with Amos in the garden and was not invited 
to the party. 

Down the road they went before any one 
missed them. Then Amos heard their mother 
calling, here and there, up attic and down cel- 
lar and in the chicken-yard. Soon, with the 
baby on her arm, she came down to the garden 
and said, in a frightened voice: 

“Amos, have you seen Don and Mary?” 

“No, Mrs. Allison.” 

“Amos, I am afraid they are lost. I 
have n’t seen them for an hour or so, I ’ve been 
so busy helping Sarah make pickles.” 

“Now, Mrs. Allison, don’t you worry. 
We ’ll find them, if they ’re to be found. 
Come, Tom.” 

Tom was up like a shot, all attention. 

“Tom,” said Amos, “go and find Don and 
Mary!” 

“Oh, Tom, find them, please,” said Mrs. 
Allison. “Find Don and Mary!” 

He looked at her, then at Amos, and then, 
with a “Woof!” he was off down the road, 
straight toward the wood-lot. 

244 


A DOG OF THE EASTERN STATES 

Amos followed, and just as he turned in 
under the big hickories by the bars, he saw 
the youngsters coming back along the tote- 
road that runs through the wood to the swamp- 
lot. Tom was herding them, and they 
could n’t have stepped out of the road to save 
their lives. Mary was crying because she had 
dropped her cookies and was n’t allowed to 
go back for them. 

Don was greatly excited. “Amos,” he 
cried, “there was a big man stealing our 
nuts, and he was up a tree, shakin’ them down, 
and I said to him : ‘Get down out of our tree. 
Those are our nuts!’ and I stamped my foot, 
just like that. And the man laughed an’ said 
I was a shaver, and went right on shaking the 
tree. And I told Mary to help me, and we 
picked up a lot. They were papa’s nuts any- 
way. And the man said, ‘Leave those nuts 
alone, or I ’ll cut your heads off,’ and he got 
down out of the tree ; and Mary began to cry, 
and I was scared, but I did n’t cry. 

“And then, all of a sudden, right between 
us and the man was old Tom. He just 
growled something awful, and showed his 
245 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


teeth, and he gave one nip at the man, and he 
ran like there was a dragon after him. And 
then Tom made us come straight home, and 
we could n’t bring the nuts, ’cause we had to 
keep going.” 

When the baby was big enough to be intel- 
ligent, she followed after the family in her 
adoration of Tom. He would let her tumble 
all over him, and pull his black woolly coat. 
He would stand perfectly still, with the ex- 
ception of his tail, and let her creep under 
him; and he would lie like a foolish bit of mar- 
ble and let her scramble over him, laughing 
and pulling his ears, or falling asleep be- 
tween his friendly paws. 

When little Martha was something more 
than a year old there came one of those mel- 
low autumn days when the creeping things 
that hibernate come out to have a last look at 
nature. Amos was bringing in a load of 
pumpkins when he saw Mary and Don run- 
ning toward him screaming with terror. 

“Hello, kids. What ’s after you? The 
bees?” 

Mary’s fat little legs gave out, and down 
246 


A DOG OF THE EASTERN STATES 

she went in the road, but with breath enough 
left to keep screaming. Don kept on until 
he reached the side of Amos’s load. 

“It’s a snake; a big snake!” he gasped. 
“He ’s eating up the baby. He was so big 
I did n’t dare kill him, and we saw you. 
Hurry! He’s in the front yard.” 

Hurry? You may believe that Amos lost 
no time. He left the pumpkins and the horses 
and went, sixty miles an hour, around the 
corner of the house. 

There sat the baby, calm as a lily, and just 
about a yard in front of her stood Tom, very 
much interested in something. 

Amos gave one look and then dropped on 
the ground with his arms around the dog, 
praising the Lord and seeing that Tom got 
his full share. There lay the snake; and it 
was a rattler — thirteen rattles and a button, 
and all dead as a door-nail. Amos picked up 
the baby and started for the kitchen; Tom 
gave the rattler one more shake for good luck, 
and then trotted along as if nothing had hap- 
pened. 

But it was at the fire that Tom earned his 
247 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


everlasting glory. No one knew exactly how 
it started; probably it was the kitchen flue, 
for it was Saturday night and there were 
beans baking. Everybody was abed and 
asleep. About three in the morning, one of 
those still nights when smoke settles heavily 
and sounds do not carry far, Amos, in his 
loft over the stables, awoke to a dream of 
folks shouting and dogs barking. Rubbing 
his eyes, he saw a bright light dancing on the 
wall opposite the window, and then with it all 
he heard a crackling sound ; and he came broad 
awake. 

He did not wait to go down the ladder, but 
dropped, hand over hand, down the rain-spout, 
and in half a minute was in the thick of it ; and 
it was n’t until afterward that he learned why 
the whole family had not been caught in the 
flames and destroyed, as the house was. 

Tom always slept in the kitchen. When 
the fire, which had evidently been smoldering 
in the back bricks of the chimney, burst 
through the walls and into the kitchen, Tom 
was the first to know it. 

He went immediately into action. There 
248 


A DOG OF THE EASTERN STATES 


was a swinging door into the dining-room, and 
the rest of the house was open and easy of 
access. Into the front hall and up the front 
stairway he went like a mad thing, running 
up and down, barking and pawing at the bed- 
room doors. Where he could get in he pulled 
at the bed-clothes, whining and barking all the 
time. 

Every one in the house was awake and 
hustling in no time. Mr. and Mrs. Allison 
seized Don and Mary and little Martha, and 
out into the door-yard they went in their little 
nighties. Sarah the maid went out over the 
shed roof. By this time the neighbors were 
all arriving, garbed hastily and sketchily, and 
everybody turned to the business of saving 
what they could of the furniture and clothing. 
Mrs. Allison took great care to salve the flat- 
irons and her china teapot, and the mirrors 
and pictures that the good neighbors threw 
out of the windows created a wreckage that 
seemed unnecessary. But in reality a good 
deal was saved, for the fire had not made much 
headway before Tom discovered it. 

And Tom, when he saw every one rushing 
249 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


around, became as busy as the busiest. He 
began carrying out shoes and slippers and 
anything he could lay his teeth to. He real- 
ized the seriousness of the occasion, and did 
his duty according to his idea of the situation. 

All this time the smoke was pouring out of 
the windows ; room after room lit up, with the 
window-panes breaking and shattering in the 
heat; then spurts of fire and smoke came 
through the roof, crackling and sputtering in 
the dry shingles; the walls leaned, trembled, 
and, with a roar as if the house were one great 
sugar-barrel on the Fourth of July, the flames 
shot skyward, and the whole structure caved 
in. A few minutes more, and nothing was 
left standing but parts of two chimneys and 
a few rafters, red like molten iron. These, 
too, soon sank, and there was nothing but a 
mass of coals ready to get breakfast over. 

The village engine, like many other village 
engines, arrived on the scene just as the 
framework collapsed. The fire company were 
bright and shiny in their red shirts and glazed 
head-gear, and they looked the more resplen- 
dent in contrast with the huddled, shivering^ 
250 


A DOG OF THE EASTERN STATES 

dew-wet, smoke-blackened neighbors. But 
they were too late, and nobody cheered them. 

Tom, old Tom, was running from one to 
another of the family, whining and forlorn as a 
lost soul. He tried hard to tell them that he 
had done his best, and just as dawn was begin- 
ning to break through, and everybody looked 
at everybody else and realized his own unlovely 
appearance, and that things were over and 
could n’t be helped, it came over Mrs. Allison 
that her three children were tucked away 
safely in a neighbor’s bed, and her husband 
was safe and she and Sarah — and Tom. 

“And if Tom had not awakened us,” she 
said, “we should all have been burned in our 
beds. We owe our lives to him, and the babies 
are safe, and the house does n’t matter.” 

“Hurrah for old Tom!” shouted Amos. 
“Three cheers for him! Hip — hip!” 

The crowd burst out with a hearty cheer 
that shook down the last bricks on the last 
chimney. 

Tom did not know what it meant, but he 
cheered as loudly as the others, which set 
every one to laughing. Then they all took 
251 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


one look around the comical, smoke -grimed 
circle, and started home. 

Mr. Allison, it may be of interest to men- 
tion, received full insurance for the house, and 
a new home went up over the ashes of the old. 
And Tom, who was loved and respected be- 
fore, came in for a share of adoration and 
gratitude to which dogs seldom attain. The 
Allisons would n’t give him away for a marble 
palace. 


252 


BRUCE: A FIRE-DOG OF 
NEW YORK 


Y OU ’ll have to take him in, if I bide my- 
self,” said James MacMurray. 

Engine Company No. — looked on with 
much interest as the captain addressed the un- 
usual applicant: a man six feet two in his red 
woolen socks, with a shock of red hair nearly 
as incendiary as the footwear, and with Scot- 
land written all over him. By his side, watch- 
ing the chief expectantly, stood the bonniest 
Highland collie that ever waved a friendly 
tail. His glossy black coat was set off by a 
collar and waistcoat of tan, and he was as 
beautiful as his master was big and brawny. 

“Mowbray did n’t mention the dog when he 
spoke of you. But if the men don’t object, 
I don’t. He looks like a good specimen.” 

“Ye’ll not find a better. Bruce has been 
with me upwards of two year, and a finer 
herder you ’ll not find in New Jersey.” 

253 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


The chief laughed. 

“There won’t be much herding to do in the 
fire department, unless you can teach him to 
herd the crowds, and keep ’em out from under 
our feet at a blaze; and he won’t find them 
lambs to handle, either.” 

“It ’s the fine mascot he ’ll be making.” 
Jim Callahan spoke from the depths of the 
room, where he was polishing the engine- 
brasses. 

“There ’s one of the men to speak for him- 
self,” said Captain Warner. “We ’ll make a 
try at taking him on, and see how it goes. 
What did you say his name was?” 

“Robert Bruce MacMurray, and it ’s a fit 
name. He ’s a king among collies.” 

“No doubt as to his nationality, at any 
rate,” laughed the captain. 

So Bruce became a member of Engine 
Company No — , and the stock-farm in New 
Jersey where his master had trained him knew 
him no more. Instead of herding sheep and 
cattle, he had to learn to avoid teams in the 
rushing whirl of New York traffic. It was 
difficult, and at first he was dazed by the never- 
254 



“It ’s the fine mascot he ’ll be making,” said Bruce’s 
master, when he applied for membership in the 
engine company 































■ 


' 









. 





























































A FIRE-DOG OF NEW YORK 

ending pell-mell of it ; but he was young, and 
he soon forgot the quiet meadows and the lazy 
cattle, and learned to love the hurly-burly, the 
roar and rattle of wheels on the pavements, 
the shriek of the brakes on the Elevated, and 
the steady, tireless hum of the great hive. 
Following his master’s example, he settled 
down into the daily routine of the station, as 
well as into the hearts of the fire-laddies. 

They were a fine set of men, those big, 
strong chaps, with the courage of heroes to 
do and die in times of danger, and the tender- 
ness which grew out of their trade of life- 
saving. The captain looked upon his com- 
pany with great pride, and he, as well as some 
of the others, had, tucked away with their 
treasures, medals for courage in action. 
James MacMurray hugged himself for pleas- 
ure at the thought that fortune had thrown 
him among men of his own kind. 

As for Bruce, his life in New Jersey had 
given him a love for horses; and who did 
not love these magnificent specimens formerly 
found in New York’s engine-houses, now gone, 
alas! before the inrush of auto-trucks and 
255 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


engines? Bruce certainly divided his alle- 
giance between the men and the four-footed 
heroes, and gave to the latter his special at- 
tention. He saw to it three times a day that 
they were properly fed and watered, he super- 
intended their rubbing down and grooming, 
and sanctioned, by a wag of his tail, the prep- 
aration of their beds at night. 

The rest of the work of the engine-house was 
also performed under his eye of approval. 
The big brass engine could never have been 
kept in such a state of shining radiance 
without Bruce as overlord. Tim Callahan 
laughed, as he swabbed on the polish and 
rubbed it down: 

“Sure now, Bruce, and what ’d you be 
doing to me if I forgot to shine one of those 
nuts? You ’d herd me back and make me do 
my work over again, I ’ll be bound. And as 
for Pete Tinkum there, he never in all his life 
bullied that floor to the extent he has since 
we had a mascot to our names, glory be! It 
was a grand day when you dropped into our 
midst, James MacMurray, you son of a 
Scotch thistle.’’ 


256 


A FIRE-DOG OF NEW YORK 


So the ordinary doings of the day passed, 
with much rough, good-humored banter. 
Evenings the men sat around in a room on 
the upper floor of the engine-house, telling 
stories, reading, or playing cards. The room 
would have passed muster and taken a prize 
in any company of New England housewifely 
products, so spandy clean it was. The row 
of white iron bedsteads were a joy to see, with 
their covers turned down, all at the same angle. 
On the floor, by the side of each one, stood a 
pair of rubber boots, with soles so thick that 
the wearer might slosh about freely in the 
neighborhood of the hydrant with no fear of 
wet feet; also he might trample over broken 
glass and never risk a puncture. Fastened to 
the boots were a pair of heavy trousers, made 
so that a fireman, waking to the alarm in the 
night, had only to step into the whole “con- 
traption” and pull the fastening straps up 
over his shoulders. Coats and helmets were 
hung on the engine and hose-cart, to be donned 
when under way, thus reducing to a minimum 
the time for dressing. 

At night Bruce slept at the foot of Mac- 
257 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


Murray’s bed, with one ear cocked for the 
fire-alarm; and when it rang, no matter what 
the day’s weariness might have been, Bruce 
was down the stair and at his post before the 
quickest man among them could slide down 
the pole, or the horses, released automatically 
from their stalls, could leap to their places. 
It was a sight worth seeing as he barked and 
capered, apparently sure that the harness 
could not have dropped to its place and been 
buckled on by the first man down, had he not 
been there to bark his orders. When the 
great doors swung open and the engine leaped 
out, Bruce took his place under it, or as near 
under as the shower of sparks and coals would 
permit ; and to the scene of action he galloped 
as did the horses, as faithful to the fiery mon- 
ster as its own belching smoke. He grew to 
have a real passion for a fire. Daytime or 
night-time, it was always the same; where the 
engine went, there went Bruce, certain that no 
blaze could be quenched without him. 

People of the neighborhood grew to look 
for the black wraith that moved like the very 
shadow of the engine. The hose-cart he did 
258 


A FIRE-DOG OF NEW YORK 


not favor at all, even when his master rode 
thereon. The sparks that singed his coat 
never made him swerve from his allegiance to 
the brass fire-devil. The small boys watched 
him rapturously, and a night call would find 
more than one pajama-clad worshiper looking 
out of a window to see the “fire-dog.” Day- 
times they lingered enviously around, as near 
the engine as the rules allowed. But they 
could only adore from a distance. The law 
of the engine company forbade familiarity 
with small boys, and Bruce was a keeper of the 
law. He might wave his brush amiably if a 
particularly enticing whistle attracted his at- 
tention, but never did his wooers win him from 
the straight and narrow path. The “fire-dog” 
remained as aloof and inspiring as the big en- 
gine itself. 

Now, there are fires and rumors of fires a- 
many in New York City, but with most of 
them the prompt dash and the finely trained 
equipment brings the danger to an end in its 
very beginnings. Occasionally, however, a 
fire will work out of sight and does not dis- 
close itself until it has made good headway. 

259 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


Then it means a stiff fight and no recess for 
all hands, even to save adjoining buildings. 
Sometimes, too, a fire will start in highly com- 
bustible material, and then look out ! The red 
demons leap and clutch everything in sight, 
and even a hurry call to every company within 
range fails to check the flames. 

This is what happened on a windy autumn 
night. A big paper factory on Eleventh 
Avenue caught fire in the basement, and the 
flames went racing and howling skyward, 
gutting floor after floor, till the whole place 
was a seething flame. It was not a case of 
saving the building itself; that was doomed 
from the first up-flying spark; but of keeping 
the fire from spreading. Calls were sent in 
for all the available engines in the district. 

It was a wild scene : the flames leaping and 
roaring; the streams of water going bravely 
into the red furnace, only to issue forth again 
in clouds of steam and vapor; the network of 
rubber serpents, each manned at the nozzle 
by sweating, helmeted heroes; the shouting 
and howling of the crowd, as floor after floor 
disappeared in the dragon’s mouth; the yells 
260 


A FIRE-DOG OF NEW YORK 


of the firemen, as they popped out of neign- 
boring skylights and proceeded to wet down 
the roofs that were dangerously near — It 
was pandemonium. 

And through it all the only quiet things 
were the horses. Quivering with excitement, 
they stood at their posts, waiting only the 
word of command that meant time for the 
drenched and weary men to be taken home. 
The mad fury of the fire held every man, how- 
ever, gritting his teeth over his special duty. 
In the turmoil, Pete Tinkum, who drove the 
engine that night for Company No. — , Bruce’s 
engine, did not see that the fire was beginning 
to blaze at the corner of the block where his 
horses stood; no one noticed. 

The heat grew fiercer and fiercer, and then 
the horse nearest the flames quietly and with- 
out a moan dropped in his tracks. No one 
saw but Bruce, who, as usual during a fire, 
remained in charge of his engine. Surely it 
was wrong that a horse, one of his horses, 
should die ! 

Bruce darted toward a man who was toiling 
along with a great flapping hose, and tried to 
261 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


get his attention. He did not even look at 
the dog. 

He tried the chief, whom he knew; but the 
chief only said, “Back, Bruce; out of the 
way!” From man to man he ran, vainly try- 
ing to get their attention. Then out of a 
black doorway came Pete Tinkum, waving an 
ax and looking wildly for a spare man to 
help him on the roofs, where a new blaze was 
starting. 

Pouf! He was nearly knocked flat by the 
rush of the dog, who leaped upon him, bark- 
ing and pawing him frantically. 

Pete stopped. This was unusual in Bruce, 
who had hitherto behaved himself so well when 
the company was in action. 

“For the love of Mike! What are ye up 
to?” said Pete as he righted himself. 

Bruce dropped to the ground, and turned 
toward his engine, then looked back at Pete 
and barked. 

“What ’s wrong, I say?” 

Then Pete looked and saw the fallen horse 
just in time to save the others, who were 
slowly suffocating. And after that roofs 
262 


A FIRE-DOG OF NEW YORK 


might burn for all of Pete, with his beloved 
horses dying at their post. He lost no time 
in getting them to a place of safety. 

And there was mourning that night at 
Engine House No. — for a good horse fallen, 
And there was rejoicing, too, because of a dog 
who had proved himself a fit companion of 
heroes. 

At another fire, also, Bruce became a life- 
saver. A tenement on Twentieth Street 
packed with human beings caught fire, and 
for hours every nerve of every man in every 
company on the spot was strained almost to 
the breaking-point. People hurled themselves 
from windows into nets; people climbed down 
gutter-spouts, or dropped themselves hand 
over hand from cornice to blind, from blind to 
window-sill, and so to safety — or death on 
the pavement below. One mother went mad 
for a moment, and refused to give up her baby 
to the fireman on the ladder. Whereupon 
mother and child were seized bodily, and car- 
ried shrieking to the ground. 

It was a fire with more smoke than flame, 
and the halls and stairways were so choked 
263 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


with the black fumes that it took the most dog- 
ged courage of the pluckiest men to go in and 
find the beings huddled behind doors, or lying 
where they had fallen at the very window-sills. 
The firemen could not stay long at the work; 
they were compelled to come out to save their 
own lives, leaving others to go on with the task. 

One more dash, and the last room would be 
searched, and every one still living would be 
out of the building: the fire, too, wa's getting 
under control, but the smoke was still dense 
and awful. In the death-filled atmosphere 
James MacMurray and Cummings, with a no 
longer needed hose, groped their way along 
the hall of the second floor to the landing. 
In the general melee the railing had been 
broken, and MacMurray, not knowing this, 
reached out to find it, overreached himself, 
stumbled, and fell head foremost into the hall 
below. As he fell he put out a hand, caught 
at the edge of the landing, and thus broke the 
fall, but at the same time swung himself in 
under the staircase, where he lay, stunned and 
alone, in the reek of smoke. 

It could not have been for long, or he would 
264 


A FIRE-DOG OF NEW YORK 

have been quite smothered. Cummings, who 
was ahead, made his way to the blessed air, 
unaware of the fact that his working mate 
had fallen. The worst was over. Captain 
Warner hastily counted his staff. 

“Where ’s MacMurray?” 

“He went in with me after that hose,” said 
Cummings. “He was right behind. Did n’t 
he come out?” 

No one had seen him. 

“In after him, boys. He won’t be higher 
than the second floor.” 

“Lucky,” said Cummings. “The other 
stairways are broken.” 

Up to the second landing groped two men, 
feeling with their feet all over the darkened 
hallways. Nobody there, nobody in the 
room, no one in the hall below. The men 
returned to their mates. 

“Can’t find him. We ’ll have to get the 
ladder for that third story.” 

“Hark!” Captain Warner lifted his hand. 

A dog was barking inside the tenement. 
Now a black collie appeared at the door, gave 
an impatient yelp, and disappeared again. 

265 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


“I’ll warrant he’s found the boy!” cried 
Callahan. 

After the dog he dashed, and in a minute 
he reappeared, bearing the unconscious body of 
MacMurray. 

“Give him fresh air,” said the captain, push- 
ing back the crowd. “He needs it bad. 
He ’s not dead, though.” 

“Aye, I ’m all right,” said MacMurray, 
lifting himself dizzily on his elbow. “How 
did you find me in the smoke?” 

“Bruce found you. You were under the 
staircase, where no sane fireman would ever 
think of falling. How the dog smelled you in 
that smoke passes me.” 

“Well,” said MacMurray, as he sat up and 
rubbed his bruises, “Bruce is a real canny 
dog. I dare be saying he ’d find me in— in— ” 

“Mount Vesuvius,” said Captain Warner, 
laughing. 

“Aye,” said James MacMurray solemnly, 
stumbling to his feet, “or in the bottomless 
pit.” 

For three January days, in the year of 189-, 
New York City had been lost in as wild a 
266 


A FIRE-DOG OF NEW YORK 


snowstorm as even the bravest cares to face. 
Side streets were blocked and almost impas- 
sable. Even Fifth Avenue, with the biggest 
effort of the street-cleaners, could only boast 
a bit of sidewalk and two narrow roadways, 
flanking a long-drawn-out Mont Blanc that 
stretched from Washington Square to Mount 
Morris Park. Then, on the fourth day, the 
dawn broke clear, breathing out of the north 
a wind with an icicle edge to it; a wind that 
bit into exposed faces and fingers until they 
cried out for mercy; a wind that pounced upon 
Harlem, and two minutes later was sweeping 
across the Battery and the bay. It sent the 
work of the cleaners whirling again in great 
unmanageable masses. It shrieked around 
the casements and ate into the hearts of the 
houses, until the janitors, even the stingiest, 
were fain to pile the coal high in the furnaces 
to save theix* own skins; and woe betide the 
unlucky who dwelt where furnaces were not! 

And thereby hung a tale for the fire-fighters. 
Chimneys stuffed with soot and overheated; 
red-hot kitchen stoves, that set the chimney 
cupboards stewing until they sprang into 
267 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 

flames; imperfect flues — the firemen can tell 
you the list of causes that force them out to 
fight harder than ever in the bitterest weather. 

So it was now. All day the alarms kept 
ringing, and blaze after blaze was fought at 
odds and with grim desperation. It was a 
hard day, and at nightfall, when the men on 
duty at Engine House No. — sat down to a 
supper brought in to them, that they might 
be on hand for a quick call, they did so with 
fervent prayers that they might be spared fur- 
ther labor, for they were spent. 

It was snug and cozy in the little upper 
room that evening, despite the wild wind. 
But outside the gale was rising, and when 
Callahan reported that the mercury was “sit- 
ting in the bulb, begorra, with his hands and 
feet folded out of sight,” every one shuddered 
and turned in for the night with extra blan- 
kets, and not even an ear left out for the 
alarm. Bruce got a blanket of his own, and 
MacMurray was considered the lucky man to 
have such a hot-water bag to his feet. Sleep, 
well earned, settled down on all. 

But it rang, oh yes ! Hardly had the most 
268 


A FIRE-DOG OF NEW YORK 


case-hardened got his first forty winks when 
a call came, and a hurry call and a double call 
for all hands and the cook. The indicator 
told them that the fire was near Madison 
Avenue at ’s big stables. 

Clang! Clang! Clang! The horses bounded 
to their places, the harness leaped to their 
backs, the men were booted, down the pole, 
and struggling into their coats along the run- 
ning-board of the hose-cart before you could 
mention John, the son of Robin. 

“You ’ll have to bide at home to-night, 
Bruce,” said MacMurray, as he swung to his 
place on the engine. “It ’s too cold a blast 
for them as has no need to go out.” 

Bruce’s tail dropped to zero, and he stepped 
back a pace. 

“Bide at home!” shouted MacMurray, as 
the doors flew open and the engine, spitting 
and belching and chugging, was drawn into 
the bleak, wind-swept snow-drifts. “Bide at 
home!” he yelled, as they turned a corner. 
Bruce stayed his feet until the rumble and 
clangor grew faint; then the ruling passion 
became too strong. A fire, and he not there 
269 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


to guard his engine? Impossible! Better 
would it be to disobey James MacMurray than 
to let his engine perish, and shame come upon 
Company No. — ! 

Down the street went a black collie, plung- 
ing and burrowing his way through the eddy- 
ing drifts, now galloping faster where the 
street had been partly cleared. When the 
scene of the fire was reached, Bruce, a little 
breathless but “still in the ring,” was trotting 
at the tail of his own particular charge. Mac- 
Murray saw him, but this was no time for 
lessons in morals. The stables were burning 
fiercely, and there were thirty-five horses to 
be saved. 

To the song of the north wind the fire added 
its crackle and roar. Already it had gained 
terrific headway; a dull red smoke poured 
from the blistered and broken windows; 
tongues of flame shot from the roof ; the whole 
upper loft was one blazing mass; and the 
flying clouds above reflected the strange, un- 
earthly light. Water was of no avail; it froze 
as it struck the building, and fell in great hiss- 
ing icicles into the flames; the lower story 
270 


A FIRE-DOG OF NEW YORK 


was covered with a great casing of ice. In 
that awful cold the elements failed to destroy 
each other. 

And underneath all this horror were thirty- 
five horses, whinnying, trembling, suffocating, 
and paralyzed with fear. Some of the fire- 
men worked with the stable-hands to get the 
horses out before the flooring should fall and 
engulf them. When those heavy beams gave 
way — ! There was not a moment to be lost. 

Hastily blinding the horses’ eyes with blan- 
kets, the men led them, one by one, bucking 
and plunging, out into the street. Twelve 
they had saved and had returned for more 
when that unaccountable desire for the protec- 
tion of their own roof seized the liberated 
beasts. There was a Wild rush, the horses 
knocking down firemen and every obstacle. 
Panic seized those that were being led out, 
and they broke away violently ; in one moment 
all were back again under the roaring furnace 
of the loft. 

A cry of anguish went up from the crowd 
that swayed and surged along the line of fight- 
ing police. 


271 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


“Fire-mad!” 

Yes, all of them! And now who would 
dare go in after them? Already the flames 
were licking between the boards above them, 
and the roof was tottering. When that fell 
the whole would go. Firemen dropped hose 
and axes and tried to force them back. No 
use. The smoke in the stables was so dense 
that nothing could be there long and breathe. 
James MacMurray battled desperately with 
a great cart-horse, but it was blinded and in- 
sane from fright and absolutely unmanage- 
able. 

Something on four feet went galloping 
past MacMurray, after the horse he had vainly 
tried to save; something black, with a collar 
of tan and a waving tail. Now from the sta- 
bles rang out a dog’s bark, strong, clear, 
insistent. 

“Bruce!” gasped MacMurray. 

“Fire-mad, too, the little devil!” said Calla- 
han, with a sob in his smoke-dried throat. 
“Head him off, you rascals!” he called to the 
quaking stable-hands. “He ’ll burn with the 
bunch!” 


272 


A FIRE-DOG OF NEW YORK 

“Speak soft, man,” said James MacMurray, 
grasping the Irishman by the shoulder, for 
Callahan was about to dive into the death- 
trap. “Hold your wits and look! Look, 
man, don’t you see the bonny laddie? He ’s 
herdin’ them ! He ’s herdin’ the horses like 
sheep, and they dare not disobey. He ’s 
bitin’ their heels now. Look how they mind 
him!” 

“Glory be!” whispered Callahan, as if afraid 
of breaking the spell. “Will you see the 
likes of that ! He ’s doing what no man 
would dare do!” 

The crowd had stopped shouting; the roar 
of the wind and the flames went on, but every 
human heart stood still. Out they came — 
two — four — six — ten — twenty horses, dazed 
with the smoke, helpless with fear; but fear 
now of a thing that barked and bit their heels 
unceasingly, and would not let them rest. 
Lastly came a black collie, herding them care- 
fully. No chance for one to turn back; they 
must go on, goaded relentlessly. Still the 
crowd kept silent. 

“Has he got them all?” 

273 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


“No, but he ’s saved twenty. Likely the 
others are suffocated with the smoke.” 

On they went ; then, as the cold struck them, 
the horses looked back at their burning home 
and paused. Would they rush again? Yes! 
No! Robert Bruce MacMurray, with his 
stock-farm training, keen, quick, sharpened to 
the task, never gave them a loophole. Bark- 
ing, biting, jumping on them, nipping at their 
heels, anywhere, but always between them and 
the danger, he forced them to belie their in- 
stincts and go on whither they were driven. 

Then the crowd broke into such a cheer as 
drowned the voices of fire and storm. The 
horses at the sound surged backward, and then 
they broke into a mad rush, helter-skelter. 
The mob leaped back to let them through — 
twenty horses and one black-and-tan collie — 
down the side street to Madison Avenue 
through the whirling drifts, away from the 
hell of smoke and flame and ruin. 

Down the avenue they galloped until Bruce 
herded them into another side street, out of 
sight and sound of the fire. Twenty horses 
saved and one hero the more! Against the 
274 


A FIRE-DOG OF NEW YORK 

wall of a brewery he brought them together 
and held them, shivering in the icy tempest, 
until the stable-hands captured them and led 
them to shelter in other stables. 

Down on his knees went James MacMurray, 
he and the dog almost disappearing in the big 
snow-drift into which they rolled. The 
strong man caught the dog in his arms and 
called him his dear and his “croodlhT doo”; 
and he picked him up and held him, kicking 
and struggling, high above his own unhelmeted 
red head, while the crowd laughed, cheered, 
cried, yelled, and forgot all about the other 
fire-lads, who were still struggling with the 
waning fire. There was just one thing for 
them, and that was a collie with a singed black- 
and-tan coat, whose name was Robert Bruce 
MacMurray. 

The following week Engine-House No. — 
was astonished to see a smart and polished de- 
livery wagon, driven by a smart and beliveried 
flunky, draw up impressively at their door. 

275 


DOG HEROES OF MANY LANDS 


From the inside of the vehicle the flunky pro- 
duced and delivered a package marked: 
“Robert Bruce MacMurray.” 

Callahan, with mouth agape, received it and 
looked at the address, wondering. 

“Hey, MacMurray, I think your dog is 
receiving a wedding present. It ’s a grand 
time for the company when Tiffany drives up 
to its door.” 

MacMurray took the box. “It ’s very well 
gotten up,” he said, turning it over and re- 
garding its white and shining magnificence. 

“Open it, man,” said Cummings, as he and 
the others came up to look. 

“It ’s a wonderful thing. Where do you 
think it came from?” 

“Open it; open it! Here, I ’ll whip those 
ribbons off with a whack of my knife.” 

“No, no, Callahan, I ’ll untie it. ’T is a 
bonny box, and I would n’t clip the strings. 
Gently now; ’t is of leather!” 

“And lined with satin. Whoo!” 

There, in the soft radiance of its cushioned 
276 


A FIRE-DOG OF NEW YORK 

bed, lay a magnificent dog-collar, just Bruce’s 
size. 

“And a plate of solid gold tacked to it, by 
the saints ! Look, there ’s wording on it. 
Will you read it, now?” said Callahan, lifting 
it from its cushion and handing it to the cap- 
tain, who had just come in. 

The captain read aloud: 

Robert Bruce MacMurray, 

The Fire-Dog. 

In grateful remembrance of services rendered on the 
night of January 27, 189- 

From [owner of stables] to the dog who saved the lives 
of twenty horses. 

Bruce looked up wonderingly as MacMur- 
ray slipped the circle over his head. 

It ’s a proud day for the engine-house, and 
for me,” said the man. His voice trembled 
on the last word. 

“It ’s a proud day for the whole company, 
by the same token,” said Callahan. “I was ex- 
pecting to see a crown out of that box. Long 
be the day before Bruce gathers with the 
saints and wears a halo !” 


277 




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